Eva Pervolovici’s ‘Oceane’ Lines Up Co-Production Partner, Casts Celeste Brunnquell and Adds Lucile Hadžihalilović as Consultant (EXCLUSIVE)

Tudor Giurgiu’s Libra Film has boarded “Oceane,” Romanian Eva Pervolovici’s fiction follow-up to 2013 Berlinale entry “Marussia.” Giurgiu will co-produce the film with Clémentine Mourão-Ferreira, whose Bordeaux-based label so-cle launched in 2020. The French-Portuguese producer, who has over two decades of experience in the industry, has worked with the likes of Manoel de Oliveira, Aida Begic, and André Téchiné.

“Oceane” has also lined up its lead in up-and-coming French actor Celeste Brunnquell (“Being Maria”), with renowned French director Lucile Hadžihalilović (“The Ice Tower”) acting as a script consultant.

Pervolovici’s will follow Brunnquell’s titular Oceane, a hypersensitive, climate-anguished young woman who works as a technician on offshore wind turbines. When Oceane is sent to rural Romania for work, she meets two people who will change her life: anti-corruption activist Alex and Iulian, a non-verbal 7-year-old boy who shares the young woman’s hypersensitivity. These meetings take Oceane on a journey fighting a criminal network that is dismantling buses across European borders, leading to a dangerous late coming-of-age.

The Romanian director, whose last two feature documentaries “The Delta of Bucharest” and “Topography of the Hazard” explored the geography and the people of her native city, says “Oceane” is a character-based film “that takes the shape of a road movie across borders, between France and Romania; Bucharest and the mountains.”

“It’s a journey of self-knowledge and a film based on when China put an end to burning forest waste on its territory, leading Western Europe to turn towards Romania and Bulgaria,” she adds. “I also aim to challenge the East-West myth by proposing a less common form of migration, from France to Romania. I want to highlight Bucharest’s activist youth, born after the fall of the wall, redefining public space in a corrupt society. Life in Bucharest becomes a playground for experimentation, a laboratory of ideas and combativeness that conquers Océane.”

Speaking with Variety out of the industry section of the Transilvania Film Festival, Mourão-Ferreira says Pervolovici’s previous work “filled her with great confidence in her talent” and led her to “want to contribute to her career in any way that I can.” “Oceane” was a clear fit for her still young production label, with the producer saying she “favors female directors” with a “clear vision.”

“The character is hypersensitive, which opens the film to very visual storytelling, as if the reality melted and there was this entire world of other sensations and perceptions that overwhelm her,” continues the producer. “Eva is capable of translating that experience visually in a way that is greatly impressive, and I am very much looking forward to helping her bring her vision to life.”

Mourão-Ferreira says she is also “thrilled” to have lined up César-nominee Brunnquell, whom she calls “one of the most interesting French actors of her generation.” The producer recalls first seeing the actor in the highly successful French adaptation of the TV series “In Therapy,” having closely followed her rising career in the four years since. As for working with Giurgiu, the veteran says it felt a “natural” partnership due not only to her admiration of his work as a director but also his knowledge of the Romanian film landscape, key to the delivery of the project.

“Oceane” is currently in development, with Mourão-Ferreira eyeing an early 2026 shoot. The project is developed with the support of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region.