Lupu

Sixteen-year-old Wolf lives together with
his mother in a Bucharest high-rise apartment
building. He doesn't speak much,
preferring to silently observe the goings-on
around him. Only when he enters the basketball
court does his life spin into action.
His mother has started dating again for the
first time since the death of his father, and
it's an elderly, recently widowed neighbour
who helps Wolf when the television stops
working. He also occasionally pays a visit
to the cool guy downstairs. On meeting
the latter's girlfriend Clara in the lift he's
immediately fascinated by her, with her
short skirt and red hair. Time and again he
searches her out, she runs with the idea
and yet, when push comes to shove, he
rejects her advances; Wolf knows of the
other men in Clara's life, and he misses his
father. Soon the fault lines between dream
and reality become blurred; Wolf takes care
of his father and his old neighbour sits in
silent unity on the sofa with his late wife.
As for Clara, is she for real or simply a
figment of Wolf's imagination? LUPU quickly
gathers pace and develops, despite
the serious subject matter of loss and
mourning, a certain lightness thanks to
the interplay between the two leading
characters. Mihai Vasilescu plays the
role of Wolf with a defiant vulnerability;
Ada Condeescu, one of the European Shooting
Stars of 2013, ably offers up the lascivious
figure onto whom Wolf can project
his personal desires.