‘Poppy Field’ Director Eugen Jebeleanu: “There are no rights for LGBT people” In Romania
Poppy Field finally has made its way to virtual cinemas everywhere, available on VOD and digital.The Romanian drama, directed by Eugen Jebeleanu, earned, among other accolades, a Torino Film Festival Best Actor prize for star Conrad Mericoffer for his dynamic performance as closeted gay gendarmerie officer Christi, who lashes out with homophobic violence in order to protect his secret life.Christi’s angry outburst places him at the center of the storm inside a film theater where he and his fellow officers are trying to keep the peace after the screening of a lesbian film is loudly interrupted by a group of anti-LGBTQ protesters.The events of the film were inspired by a real-life 2013 incident in the capital, Bucharest, where anti-LGBTQ protesters shut down a showing of The Kids Are All Right.“I was not in Bucharest at the time.
I was in Paris and was working there,” Jebeleanu recalls. “But I was, of course, shocked, and I wanted to do something on it one day, because I found that I have to have an answer.
I have to react to all this.”He had a kindred spirit in screenwriter Ioana Moraru, who also felt compelled to address the ongoing fight for LGBTQ rights in Romania, as well as the fundamentalist movement standing in the way of progress.“She and the producer called me,” says Jebeleanu. “It was like an invitation for me to direct this film, I guess because of what I was doing in theater, and my work centered on these LGBT subjects.
I said yes, from the first time, because I found [this story] necessary politically.”Chatting over a break in rehearsals for his upcoming production of Chekhov’s The Seagull at the National Theater in Bucharest, Jebeleanu describes the state of gay rights in Romania as dire.“There are no rights.
