Journal d’une femme de chambre/ The Diary of a Chambermaid, the latest film of director Radu Jude, will premiere in this year’s Quinzaine des Cinéastes/Directors’ Fortnight, an independent section held alongside the Cannes Film Festival.

The film follows a young woman from Romania who works for a French family and becomes involved with an amateur theatre company preparing an adaptation of Octave Mirbeau’s novel The Diary of a Chambermaid.

The cast includes Ana Dumitrașcu, Vincent Macaigne, Mélanie Thierry, Amélie Prévot, Louve Proust, Louen Bouteiller, Ilinca Manolache, Sofia Ioana Dragoman, and Liliana Ghiță.

Cinematography is by Marius Panduru (RSC), and editing is by Cătălin Cristuțiu. The producer is Alexandru Bogdan, Carmen Rizac is executive producer, Vlad Rădulescu is co-producer, and Bogdan Diaconu is production manager. The film is an SBS production, co-produced by Avanpost.

“My new film is neither an adaptation of Octave Mirbeau’s novel of the same name, nor a remake of any of the films, some made by great filmmakers such as Luis Buñuel, that adapt the book. Rather, it is a variation on some of the novel’s themes, with the story focusing on the life of a young woman from Romania who works for a family in Bordeaux,” director Radu Jude explained in a release by Avanpost.

“It is a film that blends various themes - migration, poverty, the relationship between East and West, as well as the interplay between theatre, literature, and cinema- everything shaped into a form that I hope is, if not entirely original, at least unique, to the extent that it was conceived specifically for this film. I would like to thank all my collaborators, and especially the production company Avanpost, which made significant efforts to ensure the film’s local production, also given that the project was rejected at the funding competition of the National Center of Cinematography,” he added.

This year’s Directors’ Fortnight selection brings together established filmmakers and emerging voices, including six debut features. It includes titles such as Kantemir Balagov’s Butterfly Jam; Reed Van Dyk’s Atonement, the Iraq war drama starring Kenneth Branagh; and Arie Esiri and Chuko Esiri’s Clarissa, a reimagining of Virginia Woolf’s novel Mrs Dalloway starring Sophie Okonedo.

Last year, Radu Jude won the Silver Bear for Best Screenplay for Kontinental '25 at the Berlin International Film Festival/ Berlinale. It was Jude’s third film awarded in Berlinale’s main competition, after Aferim!, which earned him the Silver Bear for Best Director in 2015, and Babardeală cu bucluc sau porno balamuc/ Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn, for which he took home the Golden Bear in 2021.

The director won the CICAE Art Cinema award at the 2009 Berlinale for his debut feature film, Cea mai fericită fată din lume/ The Happiest Girl in the World. His 2012 feature Toată lumea din familia noastră/ Everybody in Our Family premiered in Berlinale’s Forum section.

His 2016 Inimi cicatrizate/ Scarred Hearts received two awards at the Locarno International Film Festival and brought him the best director award at the Mar del Plata Film Festival. Jude's 2018 Îmi este indiferent dacă în istorie vom intra ca barbari/ I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians received the Crystal Globe Award at the 53rd edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival - the first Romanian feature to receive the distinction of the Czech film event.

Created in 1969 by the Société des Réalisatrices et Réalisateurs de Films (SRF), the Directors’ Fortnight showcases “the most singular forms of contemporary cinema.” The Fortnight brings together short, medium- and feature-length films, fiction and non-fiction, live action and animation. The selection is guided by the filmmaker’s “unique mode of artistic expression.”

(Photos: Avanpost)

simona@romania-insider.com