FFFA: Dracula

Dracula

VIC & NSW Premiere

“An outrageous celebration of visual storytelling in all its forms…gleefully tacky…wildly unpredictable.” – Variety

Radu Jude, whose Bad Luck Banging won the Golden Bear at Berlin in 2021, takes on his most anarchic project yet: a Dracula anthology conceived by a fake AI, shot in 29 days on phones after the production lost its financing, and bearing every scar proudly.

Across a dozen lurching episodes, striking workers face down a vampire count, a dandy solicitor hunts the undead through medieval Transylvania, a beaded crown-clad Vlad the Impaler crashes a sci-fi future, and F. W. Murnau’s Nosferatu gets buried under pop-up ads. The historical Vlad, seized upon by Romanian far-right politicians during filming, haunts the frame throughout.

Jude’s thesis is blunt: AI feeds on what already exists without asking permission. So does the Dracula myth, so does nationalism, so does capitalism. Like the undead, all of them drain life from others and call it culture.

Dracula is ferociously funny, deliberately cheap, and impossible to shake.

Festival Appearances & Awards
New York Film Festival 2025 – Official Selection
Locarno Film Festival 2025 – In Competition
Fantastic Fest USA 2025 – Official Selection
Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival 2025 – Official Selection
Sitges Film Festival 2025 – Nominee, Best Motion Picture

Rating

Unclassified 18+

Duration

170 min

Country

Romania, Austria, Luxembourg

Language

Romanian, English, German (with English subtitles)

Cast

Adonis Tanța, Gabriel Spahiu, Oana Maria Zaharia, Andrada Balea, Ilinca Manolache, Şerban Pavlu, Alexandru Dabija, Lukas Miko

Director

Radu Jude

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