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There are 16 types of wind sounds — and no music — in Three Kilometers to the End of the World, Romania’s submission to the International Feature Oscar race this year.

Director and co-writer Emanuel Pârvu told Deadline’s Contenders Film: International that the choice was made because, “We wanted to make an actual experience of how you can feel a sequence much more deeper through nature, not through enhancing with director tips and tricks; we just wanted to

to go beyond realism to go into naturalism.” The location also lent itself to that as Pârvu calls the Danube Delta wetlands region “a visual paradise.”

However, the story is far from Eden. The film, which premiered in competition in Cannes (where it won the Queer Palme), deals with themes of repression and denial, ignorance, pride, cruelty, love, nature and contradiction. It revolves around a 17-year-old who is spending the summer in his...

Just as the Oscar Best Picture race remains wide open as 2024 comes to an end, there’s a similar sense of excitement mounting about the breadth and range of films competing for Best International Feature Film. The submissions process found 85 of the 89 films presented eligible, but the real work starts now, in terms of whittling those down first to a shortlist of 15 and then to the final five.

Perhaps more so than in recent years, the diversity is eye-popping, ranging from action thrillers and personal dramas to intimate documentaries. The cross-section is well represented at Deadline’s Contenders Film: International showcase, which kicks off today beginning at 9 a.m. Pt.

Click here to launch the livestream.

As ever, this year’s lineup offers a snapshot of film festival highlights, taking us on a whistle-stop tour of the big five — Sundance, Berlin, Cannes, Venice and Toronto — with titles that made an impact at events in Warsaw,...

A hot, strong summer wind is the overriding soundtrack to “Three Kilometers to the End of the World” — the kind of dry, whirring weather that swallows conversations held even a short distance away, and carries stray, light objects far from where they meant to land. For 17-year-old Adi, however, it’s not loud enough to keep his secrets safe, nor heavy enough to lift and float him away from the home in which he feels increasingly imprisoned. A rural village in thrall to the Romanian Orthodox Church proves as hostile an environment as you’d expect for a closeted gay teen in writer-director Emanuel Pârvu’s claustrophobic study of personal and institutional prejudice closing in on a community misfit: If the breeze would just die down for a second, you might hear Adi’s inner clock tensely counting down his slim shot at freedom.

An accomplished actor now making his third feature behind the camera,...

The Cannes competition line-up has premiered some outstanding Romanian films over the last 20 years, works on the very foamy, frothy edge of the Romanian New Wave. But this year’s talky, ensemble-driven neo-realist entrant, Three Kilometers to the End of the World, isn’t on the same level as The Death of Mr. Lazarescu or 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days.

Still, actor-turned-director Emanuel Parvu (Meda or The Not So Bright Side of Things) has fashioned the kind of competent if predictable drama that will tick the right boxes for festival regulars hungry for work that affirms their prejudices against bigoted hicks in all the fly-over countries of the world. A drama about a vicious beating that ends up turning over rocks that hide corruption and cruelty, Three Kilometers at least wrings maximum benefit from its beautiful Danube Delta location, a sun-dappled marshland full of whispering reeds fringed by unspoiled beaches. If...

The Cannes Film Festival has long been like a second home for Romanian filmmakers, and actor-turned-director Emanuel Pârvu will continue that tradition when he ascends the steps of the Lumière Theater on May 17 for the premiere of “Three Kilometers to the End of the World,” which will compete for the Palme d’Or.

Pârvu’s third feature follows 17-year-old Adi (Ciprian Chiujdea), who’s spending the summer in his hometown in the Danube Delta. As he prepares for final exams and gets ready to start a new life, Adi is brutally attacked on the street, turning his world upside-down. Suddenly, the seemingly tranquil façade of his village begins to show its cracks, as Adi finds himself at odds with the customs and mores of his community.

“Three Kilometers to the End of the World” is written by Pârvu and his longtime collaborator Miruna Berescu, who produced the film for the FAMart Assn.

Exclusive: Goodfellas has acquired world sales rights to Romanian actor and director Emanuel Parvu’s thriller Three Kilometers To The End Of The World.

The feature was among three films added to the Competition line-up of the Cannes Film Festival on Monday as it announced 13 new titles in the Official Selection for its 77th edition, running from May 14 to 25.

The thriller revolves around a 17-year-old young man who is spending the summer in his home village in the Danube Delta wetlands region in Romania.

One night he is brutally attacked on the street and the next day his world is turned upside-down. His parents no longer look at him as they did, and the seeming tranquility of the village starts to crack.

The cast features newcomer Ciprian Chiujdea as the protagonist alongside Bogdan Dumitrache and Laura Vasiliu.

Memento Distribution has acquired French rights for the drama.

Actor-turned-director Emanuel Pârvu is facing a busy September, heading to Venice Film Festival with Bogdan George Apetri’s “Miracle,” set to premiere in the Horizons section, and then San Sebastian with his own second feature, “Mikado,” chosen for the New Directors showcase.

This week, he presents his third project as a director, “Three Miles to the End of the World,” in the CineLink Co-Production Market in Sarajevo, where his 2017 feature debut “Meda or the Not So Bright Side of Things” claimed prizes for best director and actor. Produced by his regular collaborator, Miruna Berescu of the FAMart Association, and aiming to shoot in 2023, the film will zoom in on a gay teenager trapped in a village in the Danube Delta. Ostracized by his local community but also his parents, he has no place to go. Literally.

“There is nowhere to escape – you just end up at a seashore,” says Pârvu,...

The drama is centered on the tumultuous relationship between a father and his daughter. Three years after his feature debut Meda or the Not So Bright Side of Things won Hearts of Sarajevo for Best Director and Best Actor at the Sarajevo Film Festival, Romanian director Emanuel Pârvu has finished shooting his second feature, Mikado, at the beginning of this week. Mikado is produced by FAMart, represented by Miruna Berescu, and co-produced by Natura Party (Teodor Mirea) and Bogdan George Apetri as a private party. The screenplay, written by Alexandru Popa with Pârvu himself, centres on the relationship between Cristi (Şerban Pavlu), a widowed father, and his teenage daughter Magda (Ana Indricău). The family’s happiness is put to the test when, on the spur of the moment, Magda gives a valuable necklace received from Cristi to a girl, a patient in the oncology ward at the hospital where Magda volunteers.