Radu Jude is a Romanian director and screenwriter who has won awards at various festivals. He received the Silver Bear for Best Director for “Aferim” at the 2015 Berlinale. He was the winner of the Crystal Globe at the 2018 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival for “I Don’t Care if History Sees Us as Barbarians.” In 2021, he received the Golden Bear in Berlin for “Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn”. In 2023, his film “Don’t expect too much from the end of the world” received the Special Jury Prize at the Locarno International Film Festival. More recently, he received the Silver Bear for Best Screenplay for “Kontinental” at the 2025 Berlinale.
In 2026, he has just directed “The Diary of a Chambermaid” which was selected in the parallel section of the 2026 Cannes Film Festival. Screened out of competition at the Busan International Film Festival in Korea, the feature film is on the program for the 55th edition of the Montreal New Cinema Festival in the Essentials section.
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Although the film is loosely inspired by the eponymous novel by Octave Mirbeau (published in 1900), Radu Jude chose to make his own adaptation. The plot follows the journey of Gianina (played by Ana Dumitrașcu), a young Romanian woman who left her country of origin to work as a cleaning lady in a bourgeois French family. To earn a living and provide for her family, Gianina had to leave her own daughter in Romania, under the care of her mother.
The daily life of a tightrope walker
The film adopts a chronological structure composed of “snippets of lives”, interspersed by the evenings where Gianina plays in an amateur theater troupe, playing the role of Célestine (main character in Mirbeau’s novel).
Her daily life consists of doing household chores and looking after the son of her employers, who are played by Mélanie Thierry and Vincent Macaigne. Behind this apparent routine, we quickly realize that life is not a long, quiet river for this Romanian who must manage the moods in this family in order not to lose her job.
From the beginning of October to December, Gianina counts the days while waiting to reunite with her daughter during the holiday season.
A mirror of contemporary contradictions
Filmmaker Radu Jude thus succeeds in highlighting the deep discomforts and invisible power dynamics that govern current society. He cultivates the art of unease in an era marked by contradictions.
Reda Benkoula
Screenings at the FNCCinéma du Musée – Sunday October 11, 2026 – 7:45 p.m. — 9:30 p.m. Cineplex Quartier Latin – Room 10 – Thursday October 15, 2026 – 9:00 p.m. — 10:45 p.m.
