The Diary of a Chambermaid, the latest feature film by Radu Jude, has been selected for the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and the New York Film Festival (NYFF).

The film has been selected in TIFF's Wavelengths section, dedicated to auteur cinema, as well as the Main Slate, the official selection of the New York Film Festival.

The film had its world premiere in this year’s Quinzaine des Cinéastes/Directors’ Fortnight, an independent section held alongside the Cannes Film Festival.

“I’m very happy that this film, which has been made with a great deal of effort, is reaching the most important festivals in North America. It is a film shot mostly in France, the first one I have made outside Romania, but it is a Romanian film, primarily because of the issues it addresses. I’m happy to see the work of the lead actress, Ana Dumitrașcu, recognized, and I’m also glad for the Romanian co-producer, Avanpost, which has made tremendous efforts to bring the film to fruition, especially since the project was rejected in the Romanian National Cinematography Centre’s [e.n. funding] competition,” director Radu Jude said.

The Diary of a Chambermaid (Le Journal d'une femme de chambre) is a predominantly French production by SBS Productions, produced by Saïd Ben Saïd, with Avanpost as the Romanian minority co-producer. The Romanian co-producers are Vlad Rădulescu and Carmen Rizac.

Loosely inspired by Octave Mirbeau’s novel of the same name, the film “offers a contemporary reinterpretation of the story, bringing Romania and France, East and West, migration, domestic work, social inequality and power relations in today’s Europe into dialogue.”

The film follows Gianina, who works as a housekeeper for a wealthy family in Bordeaux. She devotes herself entirely to caring for her employers’ son, while her own daughter grows up far away from her in Romania.

The cast includes Ana Dumitrașcu, Sofia Drăgoman, Ilinca Manolache, Liliana Ghiță, Marie Rivière, Mélanie Thierry and Vincent Macaigne. The film was shot by cinematographer Marius Panduru and edited by Cătălin Cristuțiu.

The Diary of a Chambermaid will be released in Romanian cinemas on November 20, distributed by Independența Film.

Radu Jude was born in Bucharest in 1977. He graduated from the Media University’s Film Directing Department in 2003 and worked as an assistant director on films including Amen by Costa-Gavras and The Death of Mr. Lazarescu by Cristi Puiu.

He has directed several short films, including The Tube with a Hat (2006), which received prizes at Sundance, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Rotterdam, Trieste, Cottbus and numerous other festivals.

His feature-film debut, The Happiest Girl in the World (2009), was selected for the ACID program at Cannes and won awards in Berlin, Sofia and IndieLisboa. It was followed by Everybody in Our Family (2012), winner of the Heart of Sarajevo award, and Aferim! (2015), which earned him the Silver Bear for Best Director at the Berlin International Film Festival. In 2021, Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. Last year, he won the Silver Bear for Best Screenplay for Kontinental '25 at the Berlinale.

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.

Previous films by Jude, Dracula and Kontinental ’25, have also been selected at the New York Film Festival.

Also at TIFF, Cristian Mungiu’s Palme d’Or winner Fjord has been selected in the official competition.

(Photos: Avanpost)

simona@romania-insider.com