First of all, Felicia

In a time of no-thrill traveling, where taking a plane is like taking the bus, and in a culture that supports us to find our place everywhere under the sun, »First of all, Felicia« talks about the alienated condition of a 40 year old woman who believed to have followed her passion and now doesn’t know anymore where she belongs. We are on Felicia’s departure day (after the two week annual visit to her family in Bucharest): Felicia starts packing too late, mother offers an elaborate breakfast, and father fears that he will not live another year to see his daughter again. As time is tight, they decide to take a cab, instead of letting Iulia drive her older sister to the airport. As the taxi drives through the jammed streets of Bucharest, Felicia and her mother realize they will never be in time for the flight. While trying to rebook her ticket, Felicia is confronted with her two families (her exhusband, expecting her to come back in time in order to pick up their child from a summer camp - and her father and sister, who are both trying to be helpful in their peculiar ways). All this, and the disrupted communication with her mother, slowly reveal the ordeal Felicia had to go through in the last 19 years of separation from her family. It is apparently about love, unspoken feelings, but also about power games and edges. In order to choose between the many options she has to fly back, Felicia has to balance properly her budget, her comfort, her responsibility towards her son, her time and her unspoken wish to stay one more day at home.

Razvan Radulescu

Razvan Radulescu studied Literature and Opera Directing in Bucharest. He wrote two novels and worked as an art director for magazines. In 1999 he started to write for films, among which the award wining “Stuff and Dough” (Cristi Puiu), “Niki and Flo”(Lucian Pintilie), “The Paper will be Blue” and “Boogie” (Radu Muntean) and the internationally acclaimed “The Death of Mr. Lazarescu” (Cristi Puiu). He also worked as a script consultant for Cristian Mungiu’s “4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days”.

Filmography:

2009 »First of all, Felicia«

Melissa de Raaf

Melissa de Raaf currently studies art theory, philosophy and media art at the Hochschule für Gestaltung Karlsruhe, Germany. She is an independent curator of experimental film programs and exhibitions in the Netherlands, Germany and Russia and she cooperates with visual artists, film- and documentary-makers on productions as writer and director. She wrote several scripts (“Shelter”, directed by Dragomir Sholev, “Clean”, directed by Sylvie Michel Cassey).

Filmography:

2009 »First of all, Felicia«