CHILD’S POSE by Calin Peter Netzer and Romania’s Official Entry for the Best Foreign Language Film – 86th Academy Awards, will open at Film Forum in NYC on February 19, 2014, and at the Nuart Theatre in Los Angeles on February 21, 2014. A national release will follow. CHILD’S POSE (Poziţia Copilului), winner of the Golden Bear for the Best Film at 2013 Berlin International Film Festival,  pivots on a riveting performance by Luminita Gheorghiu (Best Supporting Actress, The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, Los Angeles Film Critics) as a steely, well-to-do Bucharest architect determined to keep her 30-something deadbeat son out of jail after a deadly car crash. How far will she go to convince the police, eyewitnesses and even the victim’s family that her son was not recklessly speeding?

One cold evening in March, Barbu is tearing down the streets 50 kilometres per hour over the speed limit when he knocks down a child. The boy dies shortly after the accident. A prison sentence of between three and fifteen years awaits. High time for his mother, Cornelia, to intervene. A trained architect and member of Romania’s upper class, who graces her bookshelves with unread Herta Müller novels and is fond of flashing her purse full of credit cards, she commences her campaign to save her lethargic, languishing son. Bribes, she hopes, will persuade the witnesses to give false statements. Even the parents of the dead child might be appeased by some cash. 

Călin Peter Netzer portrays a mother consumed by self-love in her struggle to save her lost son and her own, long since riven family. In quasi-documentary style, the film meticulously reconstructs the events of one night and the days that follow, providing insights into the moral malaise of Romania’s bourgeoisie and throwing into sharp relief the state of societal institutions such as the police and the judiciary. [via Berlin International Film Festival]