Interview: Radu Jude Sinks His Teeth Into ‘Dracula’

Interviewing Radu Jude is quite the experience. As I jumped into the Zoom call to speak to the Romanian filmmaker, who has amassed a worldwide reputation with films such as Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn and Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World, his background was one of Andy Warhol‘s guns, “to be in tune with the United States,” he says. If that doesn’t give you an idea of the type of character he is, you should listen to the following conversation below.

His latest movie, Dracula, has already been much talked about before its North American release this week, and had a very different reception than his previous project, Kontinental ’25, which premiered at Berlin and won the Silver Bear award for Best Screenplay during the festival, as the filmmaker recalls in our conversation:

“I was very happy to be able to make two films and to release them in the same year. Regarding the reactions or the reception, of course, I cannot judge it that much. I think it’s up to the people to judge them as they want. However, my expectations were the opposite of what happened. I thought that Kontinental ’25 would be perceived as a non-film, and Dracula would be very much liked.

In reality, Kontinental ’25 was appreciated much more than I expected, and Dracula was trashed much more than I expected. When it’s on the positive side, we accept it more easily. So, for Kontinental ’25, I got an award, and it’s okay. However, for Dracula, I still don’t understand why people don’t like it, because I replayed the film in my mind, and say “Okay, it starts good. Maybe some stories are less good than the others,” but in a movie like that, it’s inevitable. Otherwise, I think the stories are great, there’s always an idea in the mise-en-scène, there’s always some fun things in it, so I still have to process why people are walking out or hating the film.”

There are many reasons why audience members may or may not be drawn to Jude’s satire on one of the most popular icons in all of horror, but he is proud of one moment at the film’s Locarno world premiere, which he describes below:

“When I was in Locarno with Dracula, they had a young filmmakers academy during the festival. I was there last year as a guest, and so this year they didn’t invite me. However, on my last day there, the representative of the academy came to me and said, “You know, all the young filmmakers love this film, and they want to meet you.” So I went to meet them, and then I got a small award, which was from the jury. It was there that I discovered that people in their 30s got the film much better than older people, especially in criticism and film journalism. I think most of the people in important positions, so to speak, are in their 40s, or maybe even older, and it’s not an ageist thing to say. I just had the feeling that the film speaks better to a young audience than to an older one, which makes me happy.”

Of course, there was much more to talk about, but I would be a fool to spoil what this illuminating conversation entails when you listen to the whole thing below. I will say that, since Dracula uses generative AI as an integral part of its cinematic approach, there is much discussion about the technology and the democratization of cinema as a whole.

Listen to the full interview below: