Outbound

Q&A with Bogdan George Apetri!

This fast-paced drama directed by Columbia University alumnus Bogdan George Apetri charts the whereabouts of a hard-edged female convict who, given a day pass to attend her mother’s funeral, plans to flee the country. But before boarding the boat that waits by the sea coast, Matilda (played with fierce intensity by Ana Ularu) meets her estranged brother, whose life is ruled by his religious wife, her indebted ex-boyfriend Paul, a hotel owner turned pimp, and her son Toma, whom Paul has sent to an orphanage during her prison-time. Dividing the story in three chapters that are each time-stamped to emphasize the ticking clock, and employing subtle jump-cuts and piercing close-ups, Apetri makes the best of the tight time-frame, gradually revealing the circumstances of Matilda’s outbound life. We get to reconstruct her troubled past, grasp her tense present and glimpse her possible future, in this allegory about freedom and redemption. An official selection of the Locarno, Toronto, and New Directors/New Films festivals.