North Carolina Loses Out to Romania as Filming on "Cold Mountain" Begins
North Carolina Loses Out to Romania as Filming on "Cold Mountain" Begins
July 17, 2002--The movie version of the bestselling novel "Cold Mountain," named after a place in North Carolina, has just begun filming..... in Potigrafu, Romania.
Apparently the location had overwhelming attractions for the producers, starting with the fact that the average monthly salary, expressed locally as $3.3 million lei, translates into around $100 US. This is considered extremely low even by Eastern European standards.
Further, the filmmakers do not have to worry about physically covering or digitally editing out modern items such as power lines. The area doesn't have any to speak of.
Local officials told the Associated Press that they are delighted with the arrangement. Mayor Gheorghe Voicu calls it "a hand from heaven for the locals"
The cast has been finalized with Nicole Kidman in the role of Ada, the sheltered young woman who must learn to cope with wartime chaos after her father's death, and Jude Law playing Inman, the Confederate soldier who deserts after being wounded and struggles to get home to Cold Mountain.
Anthony Minghella, who directed the Oscar-winning "The English Patient," found the fields and virgin forests of southern Romania a perfect setting for the $80 million "Cold Mountain." Later scenes will be shot in the mountainous region of Transylvania, in northern Romania.
The production is already producing benefits for the Romanian village of 1300 people. Film producers have laid gravel on the road, the first time it's been repaired in 60 years. Mayor Voicu has been busy this summer fixing up the kindergarten and village school with income earned from the film.
Cash is also making its way into the pockets of local citizens. Romanian extras are paid about $10 a day, less than a tenth what their Hollywood counterparts would make. Additional payments are made to farmers for the use of their fields for battle and other scenes.
"I love my animals, so I bought them food with the money," said Stelian Raducu, 71, who received about $900 compensation for three cows. More than 100 cattle farmers have been compensated about $300 a head for the inconvenience.
Local crops are primarily corn and sunflowers, but farmers have been hurt by three years of drought. Businesses are few and industry nonexistent, and the town is known in Romania mainly for clay pots and rush mats.
The film industry will bring Romania tens of million of dollars this year, according to Vlad Paunescu, managing director of Castel Films, the Romanian producers for "Cold Mountain." After communism ended in 1989, the country was the site of some low-budget Western horror movies.
Romanian film critic Alex Leo Serban said movies shot in Romania in the past two years -- such as "Callas Forever," directed by Franco Zeffirelli and starring Jeremy Irons, and Costa Gavras' "Amen" -- led producers to select it for "Cold Mountain."
Local reporters have sneaked onto sets at night and staked out Kidman's hotel and Transylvania residence in mostly vain attempts to get a glimpse of her.
Potigrafu is located about 25 miles north of the capital, Bucharest. Officials in North Carolina had made serious overtures in at attempt to have the movie shot "on location" in the state. The film is being made by Miramax-MGM.
