Synopsis
Mihai and Lisbet Gheorghiu, a devout Romanian Norwegian couple, move from Romania to Norway with their children to be closer to Lisbet’s family. They quickly bond with their neighbors, the Halbergs: Mats is the school principal while his wife Mia is a retired lawyer. Mats’ daughter, Noora, is a rebellious adolescent but the friendship with her new neighbors starts changing her. When adolescent Elia Gheorghiu shows up at school with some bruises on her body, the community wonders if the strict, traditional education that the Gheorghiu children get would have anything to do with it.
As tensions grow, both families must confront their different views on family, freedom, and progress, raising a difficult question: Where does personal freedom end and society’s demand for conformity begin?
The instagram film page can be found here: Fjord the Film
Competition films with the most star power include Cristian Mungiu’s English-language debut “Fjord,” featuring Renate Reinsve and Sebastian Stan as a couple moving to a remote Norwegian town; Pawlikowski’s Cold War drama “Fatherland,” starring Sandra Hüller; Farhadi’s Paris-set “Parallel Tales,” with a French ensemble led by Isabelle Huppert and Catherine Deneuve; and Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s “The Beloved,” headlined by Javier Bardem playing an acclaimed director estranged from his daughter.
Actor Sebastian Stan financed the film “A River’s Gaze”, which brings a less stereotypical perspective on Romanian villages. Directed by Andreea Cristina Bor?un , the film explores the complex relationship between a single mother and her teenage son, amid labor migration, and offers a candid approach to the realities of rural life: “Many families are divided and this brings with it anger and frustration, issues that were very clearly shown to us in the fall of 2024, during the presidential elections, and that we should not close our eyes to or forget about,” says director Andreea Bor?un in an interview with the HotNews audience.
Serkis will join a cast in Batman II that includes Robert Pattinson returning as the Caped Crusader, Colin Farrell as The Penguin, Scarlett Johansson, and Sebastian Stan as Harvey Dent.
I found a short interview of Sebastian and Anthony Mackie for ‘Captain America: Civil War‘ press in 2016. I’ve added screencaps to the gallery and a video of the interview below. I’m adding this because most of the interview links that are now on the site from this film are now inactive and I have no idea if its new/old or just old seeing as this film is before I ran the site. Enjoy.
Film Projects > Screen Captures > Web Videos > 2016 > Captain America: Civil War Press Tour (April-May) > Reuters Interview [Screen Captures]
Surprise! I found a short interview of Sebastian from Berlinale Film Festival in 2024 after he received the Silver Bear for ‘A Different Man‘. I’ve added screencaps to the gallery and a video of the interview below. Enjoy.
Film Projects > A Different Man (2024) > Berlinale Award Interview #2[Screen Captures]
By Sebastian Stan
Photographed by Danny Lim
February 24, 2026
The path to Hollywood isn’t a yellow brick road. Starting from a small village in Norway, Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas made several detours: after being rejected from Norway’s top acting school, she joined an exchange program in Brazil, studied psychology for a year, spent a semester at New York’s Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute, and then returned to Norway, where her parents run a theater production company. And now, at 36, Ibsdotter Lilleaas is a first-time Oscar nominee for her quietly affecting turn as Agnes in Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value, where she and Renate Reinsve play sisters navigating the prospect of reconciliation with their estranged filmmaker father (played by Stellan Skarsgård). The film’s meta-commentary on memory, trauma, and filmmaking itself has captured the hearts of audiences and critics—each of its lead actors are nominated for Academy Awards, as well as Trier for his direction. As Insdotter Lilleaas approached the final leg of her very first awards circuit, Sebastian Stan put her in the hot seat to reflect on a number of pinch-me moments, from meeting Susan Sarandon to being called the year’s best “special effect” by none other than Paul Thomas Anderson.—SIMON DWIHARTANA
Malul Vânât / A River’s Gaze, the debut feature film by director Andreea Cristina Bortun and also the first Romanian project supported by Romanian-American actor Sebastian Stan , as producer and financier, has been selected in the SMART 7 competition , a network of international festivals supported by the Creative Europe Programme. In Romania, it will be screened at TIFF, the festival being part of SMART 7.
Andreea Bortun talks below about the research work on this film and working with non-professional actors, met in the rural environment. And Sebastian Stan tells exclusively for Cultura la dub why he decided to get involved in the production of the film.
The Blue Shore is the first part of a trilogy about love in the countryside. The film is an anthropological drama that adopts a rare approach: the cast is made up of over 60% non-professional actors, met in the villages where Andreea Cristina Bortun conducted field documentation for six years (2017–2022).
“Thanks to an impressive effort by the entire team, the filming took place over four seasons, capturing the cycle of nature and rural life. The film explores the tense and yet touching dynamic between Lavinia and her 14-year-old son, Dani, in a village in southern Romania. The director talks about combining artistic elements with anthropological work. For me, using artistic research tools borrowed from anthropological fieldwork came at first as something intuitive. It seemed natural and necessary to take part and get to know the world that interested me closely. They bring themselves to the screen first and foremost, and that very real something remains over time. This aspect of hybridity between what may seem documentary, but which is at the same time a product of fiction, is something that interests me as part of my long-term artistic practice. The years of field research, the discussions with local women who shared their life stories with me, especially the defining encounter with one of them – a model for Lavinia’s interiority -, I hope will ensure a fair representation of today’s Romanian countryside, which, after all, is home to half of
Sebastian Stan for Cultura la dub: “There are many female directors in Romania who have something to say.”
The project encountered several obstacles, and in its support came the American actor of Romanian origin, Sebastian Stan. Winner of the Golden Globe and nominated for the Oscars last year, Sebastian Stan tells exclusively for Cultura la dub? why he decided to get involved in the production of the film Malul vân?t . Known for his close relationship with his mother, to whom he dedicated his Golden Globe win, Sebastian Stan was impressed by the script by Andreea Bortun, which shows the struggle of a mother to give her son a better life.
“I was very happy to have this opportunity to support a project by a young director, just starting out, her first feature film.I think it’s really important, if we can, to support these new voices. Often great careers are born from these first steps. Think of Martin Scorsese, who debuted with Who’s That Knocking at My Door (1967) thanks to the support of producer Roger Corman, paving the way for masterpieces like Taxi Driver later. I can’t say that my support was as decisive, as important, but I tried to be with him in this endeavor as much as I could. My roots are there, in Romania, even though I left when I was only 8 years old, and the first time I returned was only when I was 21. This long break made the return not only physical, but much more revealing, I could even say spiritual. Through the films I make and my chosen profession, I want to contribute in a way that is beyond me, that goes beyond my personal ego. That’s why I got involved in Andreea Bortun’s film, because there are many female directors in Romania who have something to say. And she had a story that was a little similar to my story with my mother, there are some small parallels there. And it wasn’t just that that attracted me to this project, but also the way it was made: the research carried out over 6 years, the filming done in the four seasons, something quite rare for a fiction feature film. Over 60% of the cast are non-professionals from the regions where the filming took place, ordinary people who were given a real chance to interpret what they experience day to day and not just in a feature film. Including one of the main actors, the boy, which I consider to be a brave bet for a debut director, not many take it on,” Sebastian Stan told Cultura la dub .
Lavinia, a single mother, is trying to make a better living for her and her son, in a poor Romanian village. On her own terms. She’s impulsive, she miscalculates, she doesn’t know very well how to love. Dani, her 13 years old son however needs his mother more than ever during this period of his life, at the threshold between childhood and adolescence. In the course of the four seasons, Dani and Lavinia’s relationship is put to the test.
‘A River’s Gaze’ will have its World Premiere at the Vilnius International Film Festival Kino Pavasaris in Lithuania on March 13. Tickets are available here. Sebastian is a producer and investor of the film.