– The Romanian-French co-production follows a gay architect whose life unravels after an unexpected death
Ionuţ Vişan and Vlad Ionuţ Popescu in We Won’t Get Old Together
After his feature debut Monsters. world-premiered in the Berlinale’s Forum in 2019, Romanian writer-director Marius Olteanu is now in the final stages of post-production on his sophomore feature, We Won’t Get Old Together, a rare Romanian LGBTQ+ feature. The project is being produced by Oana Bujgoi Giurgiu through Point Film (Romania) and Martine Vidalenc through Midralgar (France).
Set during the summer of 2020, the screenplay follows Radu (Ionuţ Vișan), a 40-year-old architect awaiting the results of a medical investigation that could change his life. Caught between two relationships, he becomes embroiled in the aftermath of the death of his younger lover’s former partner, navigating bureaucracy, prejudice and his own fears while trying to rebuild his life. Eugen Jebeleanu (director of Poppy Field), Vlad Ionuţ Popescu, Alexandru Potocean (Monsters., Poppy Field), Nicoleta Hâncu (The New Year That Never Came), Cendana Trifan (Sorella di Clausura) and Emanuel Pârvu (director of Three Kilometres to the End of the World) round out the main cast.
Produced on a budget of just over €1m, approximately half of which came from the Romanian National Film Centre, the film was shot over 26 days in Bucharest. The project also received support from Creative Europe MEDIA, took part in Cinelink Industry Days and the Baltic Event Co-Production Market, and won the Works in Progress Award at this year’s Transilvania International Film Festival. Laurențiu Răducanu serves as director of photography.
Although inspired by a thoroughly documented real case from 2020, Olteanu stresses that We Won’t Get Old Together is a work of fiction. At the same time, he sees it as “a manifestation of the need for equality”. For context, Romania remains one of the few European Union member states that offers no legal recognition whatsoever to same-sex couples, a reality that forms the backdrop to the film. “It is incredible that, in 2026, people are denied the right to visit their loved one in hospital or to arrange their funeral simply because of their sexual orientation. Equally shocking is that someone who is, in every meaningful sense, part of a family is denied the right to be recognised and treated as such, simply because the majority clings to a narrow, restrictive definition,” Olteanu explains.
The director also says that, beyond its social dimension, the film is “first and foremost about love, about the need to be loved and accepted”. Olteanu also insists that there is hope in his film. “There is the attempt to become a better person. There is humour, there is absurdity, and above all I believe there is a need to connect authentically with another person. There is hope there, too, like a plastic punnet of raspberries on a market stall in the 40-degree heat,” Olteanu explains, referring to a scene in the film.
We Won’t Get Old Together will be released in Romanian cinemas in 2027.
