Romanian production “Lost and Found” to premiere at Tallinn international documentary competition

“Lost and Found: Thirty Years, Not Together,” the first feature-length documentary by director and producer Laurențiu Garofeanu, is set to hold its world premiere on November 11 at this year’s prestigious Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (PÖFF).

Filmed over seven years in Romania, Canada, and Spain, “Lost and Found” follows the story of Jessi Froud, a young woman who spent the first two months of her life in the hospital in Călărași before being adopted by a family in Canada in 1990. Her adoptive parents were told she had been abandoned at birth, but she had not.

Thirty years later, Jessi decides to return to Romania to discover her roots and work alongside children in the place where she was born. Over two years, she builds a deep relationship with the family she was taken from. However, a meeting with her biological father, who comes from Spain, turns everything she knew upside down, revealing a secret the family had agreed never to speak of.

“Our entire selection committee was captivated by this deeply moving film,” said Marianna Kaat, curator of the Doc@PÖFF international competition.

The film will be shown as part of the festival’s international Doc@PÖFF competition in the presence of the director and the protagonist.

“I didn’t set out to make a film about adoptions. I wanted to make a film about identity, so I looked for people who had been adopted from Romania as babies,” said director Laurențiu Garofeanu. “I thought I was making a film about a woman who had found her family again. Then her biological father came from Spain to meet her. Her life changed in that hour. The film changed along with her."

Estimates indicate that approximately 30,000 Romanian children were adopted abroad between 1989 and 2001. This year marks 25 years since Romania halted international adoptions. The National Authority for the Protection of Children's Rights and Adoption has stated that it does not have exact figures for adoptions before 1994.

The film’s main team includes Laurențiu Garofeanu (direction, production, and cinematography), Irina Enea (executive producer), Iulian-Manuel Ghervas (editing), Olivia Ianculescu (finishing editor), and Iustin Bauer (original music).