We Won't Get Old Together

Caught in between two relationships and a suspect of a terminal condition, an architect is forced to arrange the burial of a young man he has never met, only to understand that his own life needs to be rebuilt from the ground up.

Mihnea(40) leaves the hospital to meet Gabi, a man of the same age, his boyfriend. They barely talk about the medical results and about MihneaA not having a job. Later, Mihnea heads for the apartment of a younger and fitter man, Alex (35). They have sex and, in the middle of the night, they are woken up by a call - Adi, Alex's best friend, has died of AIDS. They rush to Adi’s apartment. The place is full of policemen and paramedics and Adi’s body lies on the floor. Under the pressure of time, heat, suspicions, and a legal void, Mihnea deals with the authorities, in order to receive permission to bury Adi. He later confronts Alex about his cheating and Gabi, on his contentment with being stuck in the wrong country and in the wrong life. Arriving home and fearing the worst about his medical tests, Mihnea imagines Adi’s funeral as a disco resurrection, in a sort of payback for reality never being what he hoped for. He then decides to abandon everything and rush to the airport.

Mihnea, a 40-year-old, is leaving the hospital and, moments later, meets Gabi, a man of the same age. Behaving like an old couple, they walk the streets of Bucharest but barely talk about Mihnea’s medical results and about him not having a job. Mihnea tells Gabi he needs to go to a business meeting that very evening and heads for the apartment of a younger and fitter man, Alex. Alex behaves like Mihnea’s boyfriend. They have sex and, in the middle of the night, right after Mihnea has a vision of another man being in the bedroom, they are woken up by a call - Adi, Alex’s best friend, has died of AIDS. They rush to Adi’s apartment. The place is full of policemen and paramedics and Adi’s body lying on the floor - he is the man from Mihnea’s vision. Since Alex and Constantin, Adi’s boyfriend, are traumatized by the loss and no one from Adi’s family is willing to come to Bucharest, Mihnea has to deal with the authorities, in order to receive permission to bury Adi. Neither Constantin nor Alex has the legal right to decide over the body, thus Mihnea needs to pull some strings. He keeps on having visions with Adi and feeling a stronger connection with him. When the body is finally removed to be prepared for the funeral, Mihnea confronts Alex about his cheating and, later on, Gabi on his absent kind of loving. Arriving home and fearing the worst about his medical tests, Mihnea imagines Adi’s funeral as a disco resurrection, only to abandon everything and rush to the airport.

Director's note:
This film and its subject have their starting point in a time during which reality seemed to be a construction on the edge of collapse and a problem with no foreseeable solution. If I had to summarise this endeavour in the most succinct way, I would probably say We Won’t Get Old Together is a 24-hour-long goodbye letter prompted by death and fear, condensed in two hours of cinema, a goodbye that also includes the desperate need to search and find a reason for which to stay. The action takes place during the outbreak of Covid-19, in the summer of 2020, a time when the world got smaller and turned into a scarier place. Why the need to tell this story? Because it deals with growing up, confronting the end, redefining values, and having to escape reality in order to understand it better. It is a story about compromises and dealing with unfulfilled dreams. Searching for the profound logic of the characters goes hand in hand with discovering new visual ways of expressing their journey.

Producer's note:
Marius and I met back in 2015 while collaborating on the film Sieranevada directed by Cristi Puiu, where I was executive producer and he was assistant director. It was a difficult project and I greatly appreciated the way he managed to organize the shoot, and the team and find solutions for difficult situations. His resilience, seriousness and involvement impressed me and led to the desire to collaborate with him as a director. I followed his debut film "Monsters", I had the chance to be present at his premiere in Berlin and I was happy for the film’s achievements, confirming Marius’ talent and sensitivity. Later on, our distribution company, Transilvania Film, was the distributor of “Monsters” in Romania. We decided to collaborate for his second feature. In the last years, Marius was exploring new topics and developed new outlines, until we stopped to the story of “We won’t get old together”. We applied to the Creative Media development slate and we are planning to apply for financing in Romania at the next National Cinema Centre call. We imagine this film as a possible three parties - co-production, so we are looking for partners.