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Florin Șerban: The Story Comes First, Style Follows

The idea for the film emerged during an improvisation in an acting class that Șerban teaches at his film school in Bucharest.

After eight years of working on an idea that began as an improv exercise in an acting class, Romanian director Florin Șerban has arrived in Sarajevo with his film YOU DON’T BELONG HERE. The film will have its regional premiere within the Competition Programme – Narrative Feature Film of the 32nd Sarajevo Film Festival.

Although his new film seems significantly different at first glance, the director says he does not think of style as something that precedes the story. "I think I don’t have a style. I think the story is most important, and then style comes later," Șerban said at a press conference in Sarajevo.

The idea for YOU DON’T BELONG HERE emerged during an improvisation in an acting class that Șerban teaches at his film school in Bucharest. The theme of the exercise was hate, and the conflict between a father and a son left a strong enough impression on the director to become the starting point for the film, based on a generational conflict and a father's contempt for his own son.

From that initial idea, a story developed about a father and a son, but also about a much broader social phenomenon. At the heart of the film is the relationship between Marius, a chief physician at a hospital in a small Romanian town, and his teenage son Ioan, whom he has been raising alone since his wife's death. Marius believes he knows his son; however, at night, Ioan vandalizes cars along with a group of masked youths. When the police begin to suspect he is connected to a murder, the father's world starts to fall apart.

For Șerban, this relationship is just the beginning of a much wider story. The film talks about the breakdown of a family relationship, but connects it with the rise of right-wing movements, an identity crisis, and the question of what it means to be a man today. A specific source of inspiration was events in Russia—namely youth movements where vandalizing cars became a way of expressing belonging and rebellion. Șerban transferred this motif into the fictional world of the film, aiming to speak about a phenomenon that, although set in Romania, has its parallels in other societies as well. Although the story is completely fictional, the film becomes a portrait of a world where young people seek belonging through dark forms of community.

Interestingly, YOU DON’T BELONG HERE is an entirely Romanian production. The crew tried to make as few compromises as possible during production, especially regarding the production design. A large part of that world was found through a long casting process that lasted two years, with around 1,000 young actors auditioning. For the director, casting also serves as a way to see how people read his story: "It helps me better understand my own idea," Șerban explained.

When it came to the lead actor, there was almost no dilemma. Teodor Butanescu was a choice that imposed itself. Part of the cast also comes from his acting school, so the selection process had an added dimension of a personal relationship. At the center of the film is the friendship between two young men who represent two different forms of masculinity and two different views on life. Their relationship becomes a mirror for a generation trying to find an identity in a complicated world.

YOU DON’T BELONG HERE is, however, a film that intentionally leaves room for questions. At the press conference, the topic of the ending was raised, but without a definitive answer. The actor offered his own interpretation—he believes his character was killed by his own "friends". Still, the ending is intentionally left open to interpretation, blurring the lines between belonging and exclusion, friendship and violence.