Thinking in Short Structures
Brevity is the soul of wit? Short-film director Paul Negoescu explains why he is in no rush to make the jump to feature films.
Paul Negoescu
Twenty-five-year-old director Paul Negoescu has made more than ten short films and established a considerable reputation for his work in the short format. No stranger to the Berlinale, which presented his previous film, RENOVATION, last year, the Romanian is back this year with his latest work, DERBY, in the Berlinale Shorts competition. Though many directors regard shorts as an entry-way into feature work, Negoescu sees himself as a short filmmaker and is willing to put off his feature debut until the right project comes his way.
The 15-minute DERBY tells the story of a father who hears his fifteen-year-old daughter moaning while she is in her room with her boyfriend. The father finds out over dinner that he and the boyfriend are supporters of rival football teams – a discovery that becomes an outlet for the father’s hostility towards the youth. The film charms with situational humor, and a straightforward visual style and clean construction contribute to its effectiveness.
“Structure is very important for short films. Many short films that I saw had bigger stories compressed into a 10-15-minute structure. It’s really annoying to see a film compressed that way. If the story is for a 40-minute film, do it that way, don’t compress it.”
The favorable attention received by Negoescu’s short films means that he has had no lack of offers to direct features, but he hasn’t yet been offered a script that is to his liking. “I don’t want to make any kind of film just because I have an opportunity to make a feature.” The solution would be to write his own script, but he admits that switching to a long format will take some adjustment. “All the ideas I have are short film ideas. I have to make a mental change and try to think in bigger structures. There are so many features which are short films expanded into features and I don’t want to do that.”
In the meantime, Negoescu shows no signs of falling out of love with the short format. “I would be very happy to make only short films. I don’t think short films are less important – they are a different form of expression. The only problem is that you cannot make a living with them. I would like to make a feature film, but only when I’m ready to do it.”
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