“Team Building” became the most successful Romanian film in the last 30 years. The comedy directed by Matej Dima, Kosmin Nedelka (Mikutsu) and Alex Kotec has so far collected more than 17.5 million lei at the box office and remains in the top of the audience’s preferences. To learn more about the film, we spoke with screenwriter Alex Kotec.

From the moment of release on September 30, “Team Building” quickly entered the soul of the public. The film represents the Romanian reality, the action of which unfolds in a corporation where various characters work, who are easy to identify with the people around them.

The production addresses a number of uncomfortable stereotypes in a funny way, while at the same time highlighting some of our peculiarities as a people.

The story tells about Emil (Matej Dima), a guy who works too much at the PLM Global corporation. His boss, Mr. Oprea (Sherban Pavlou), wants to curb their energy, so he promotes him “horizontally” and makes him team leader in the call center department, where corporate ungrateful people work, and the unofficial leader is the grumpy Horiya (Mikutsu).

Oprea wants to close the department, but he offers Emil a deal: if the young man brings him the Cup of Fun, the cup from the annual team meeting that the people of Bucharest have never won and the Transylvanians have always won, he will not fire anyone.

Said and done. Emil and his colleagues go on their first team building and, as expected, things get off to a crazy start. Who will win the cup?

“The Romanian comes to the movies to escape the cruel reality he lives in, so you have to be very careful how you give him the medicine so he doesn’t spit it out because it’s too bitter”

A frame from the film Team building. Screenshot via YouTube

Alex Kotec says he wrote a 132-page script for Team Building, but Matei and Kosmin, as producers, helped him refine it, drop certain characters and add new situations.

“We are three comedians with three different styles of humor and I say that is the key to the success of the film. For example, Matei came up with the idea of ​​replacing the Bubble Football test with paintball, otherwise nothing would have worked out, and Kosmin wrote his own monologue about how to “make love” with his anxiety,” he explains.

Alex is 35 years old and “comes from YouTube”, where he has the comedy channel Sector 7, the project where he first met Mikutsu 14 years ago. He was also a radio producer, television scriptwriter and eventually moved into advertising.

“Now I’m shooting commercials for different agencies, doing creative work at my own agency (Sector 7 Hub), and every two years I’m looking for free time to make a film,” he adds.

Kotec began writing comedy at the age of 19, in his freshman year of college, because he was annoyed by the fact that television lacked the humor he saw in American series, which he “avidly hacked, like everyone of his generation, from the Internet “. So he started writing, editing and directing sketches and videos for Sector 7, and at the age of 23 he sent his first script, a horror film, to several production houses in Romania.

“No one had money for production, we parked and switched to advertising. Then the first full-length film that saw the light was “Oh, Ramona”, – explains the creative.

Alex has also worked on other successful films such as ‘Miami Bikes’ and ‘Investors’ and believes that ‘with a good script you can tell a piece of truth about the world if you know how to wrap that truth in a sweet and easily digestible glaze. The Romanian comes to the movies to escape the cruel reality he lives in, so you have to be very careful how you give him the medicine so he doesn’t spit it out because it’s too bitter.”

“A call center for today’s youth is what the army was for our parents”

Screenwriter Alex Kotets. PHOTO: Alex Coteț/ Personal archive

Where did the idea come from and why a film about team building?

Alex Kotets: Matei and Kosmin wanted to make a film about a high school reunion, they got confused and called me for a brainstorming session. Matei and I arrived after the success of “Miami Bici”, so the first thing we thought about was the need to target the community – a collective of people with common interests who also have money to go to the cinema.

I came up with the idea of ​​a film about the adventures of the generation with the card around the neck because I came up through a media corporation and had a lot of strange stories to tell, and I chose the theme “call center” because it is often the first place of work in the car corporator’s office; so that he can sympathize with the characters.

It was also the first job in my career. A call center is to today’s youth what the military was to our parents.

Did you feel like it would catch on?

We felt that it would bring moviegoers to the cinema, but we did not set a clear target because commercial cinema is a new niche for us, a risky one, where there is no “user manual” to follow. Our only benchmark in terms of success was “Miami Bisi”, also made by us.

There are so many external factors that you have to juggle when you want to make a film that is both good and profitable, that if you don’t feel like it, you’re better off doing something else.

“I was hoping to destroy the good reminder phrase once and for all”

“Team Building” became the most successful Romanian film in the last 30 years. Does this say something about the Romanian people?

This says a lot about how Romania has changed for the better in the last 10-15 years. In the 2000s, a film about the corporate, Romanian, HR niche and the American concept of “team building”, I think, would not have gathered even 100,000 viewers.

What were your expectations for this film?

First of all, let’s show that we can achieve the aesthetics and dynamics of the American film in our country. Romania is full of American movies that were shot here because it’s cheaper, but there are a few cases where Romanians are considered good enough to be in foreign productions.

Separately, I hoped to destroy the phrase “good reminder” once and for all. This is where I got the most pleasant surprise: after the film came out, I received printouts from various HR staff and corporate friends with official emails saying that it was company policy to no longer tolerate the expression.

“People laugh a lot more if they identify with a certain situation”

The central characters are formed on a certain type of stereotype, and many seem to have met them in real life. Could this be the secret of the humor that captivates Romanians?

It is not only Romanians, and in general people laugh much more if they identify with a certain situation. The fact that they can do this comes as a relief and makes them feel “understood.”

There is no shortage of misogyny in the film. Do you think it might encourage the average Romanian to continue being a misogynist, to identify with a certain character enough to say “yeah mom, it’s okay for me to be like that too”?

The misogynists in the film are idiots. If you’re an idiot, you’ll probably think it’s okay to stay an idiot. But the moral of the film is that a smart girl, who is always passed over for promotion simply because she is not a man, finds the strength to become her own boss. It’s an ending that was highly appreciated by the audience.

“Without revealing certain Romanian realities, we cannot talk about them”

In the context of Romania, do you think such films should be educational?

Only a narcissist or a Nazi could say that his film “should” educate someone. The purpose of the film is to entertain, which is why it was invented 130 years ago. If he can entertain, but also give good advice to the public, let him be accepted.

But the film doesn’t HAVE to be educational either. Unfortunately, many filmmakers from here have taken on such a mission that they should educate the Romanian people. But who are you to bring me up by force?

But can the film educate directly through the Romanian reality it exposes?

Without revealing certain Romanian realities, we cannot talk about them. Without talking about these realities, we cannot change them. Comedy aims to hold a mirror up to the viewer, then laugh at their flaws and make them think. He will study on his own when he returns home.

How difficult is it to make such a film in Romania?

It has always been difficult: you want to have a high-quality image, scenery, good conditions for actors, and all this to play with private money that must be returned to investors, plus the promised profit, because otherwise you won’t be. I don’t see any lei for the next movie.

“Brands are still not that familiar with the idea of ​​product placement in film”

Are brands open to supporting such productions?

They’re still not that familiar with the idea of ​​product placement in film, and many struggle to understand the benefits of an image compared to what they get from a web or TV ad. But the film could turn the brand into a “pop culture icon,” costing the company as much as the media money it would have spent running the spot on TV for two weeks.

Does the client want the product placement to be as natural as possible in action or does it want to stand out?

All the brands in our film understood that it was for the greater good that the product naturally integrated into the story. Our ambition was to use real, everyday brands in the film, instead of making up fake bottle labels or covering up store names. Watching an American film, you don’t ask yourself the question – “why does Tom Cruise get out of the Ford?” Did he give Ford money?’

“A gentle reminder of hypocrisy”

What would you say to the elites who laughed at some of the jokes but criticized the movie online?

A welcome reminder of hypocrisy. If the film had 10 thousand viewers and was scolded in the comments on the network, these “elitists” would make everyone “stupid” and “ignorant” because they do not appreciate good humor. They hunt for “influence”.

These are the people who, when Simona Halep wins a match, say they’ve known her since she was a child, before she ever stepped on the court. If she loses, they also comment and write that they always said that the girl does not know how to play. But in reality, they don’t even watch tennis.

Film commentary collected from the web by Alex Kotec

By the way, what annoyed you the most about the negative reviews about the film?

I have 12 years of YouTube under my belt, and there is not a single negative comment that annoys me anymore. On the other hand, it’s good that even the haters can’t agree on what they don’t like about Team Building.

Half say it’s too American, half say it’s too Romanian. Half because it’s too absurd, half because it’s too realistic. Half of it is above Miami Beach, half is below it.

And it’s not their fault, but the fact that we don’t really have film education in the true sense of the word. Either they only know about festival films and their humor is Woody Allen in the 70s, or they only know about commercial superhero films and their humor is Nea Mărin Miliardar, also from the 70s.

What would you like people to understand from the film, what did you stop at?

At the end of the day, big or small, we are a team. After all, you can be your own boss.

• Also read: Metronome Cannes Award-winning director: ‘I’d be happy to spark a debate about 1970s security and where things could have gone with national security laws’