Trivia

Almost all of the scenes in Adrian Tofei's movies are first takes. He initially did multiple takes for his first movie, Be My Cat: A Film for Anne (2015), but then realized that the first ones are always the most natural and authentic ones and decided to include only first takes in the final cut.

One of the reasons why Adrian Tofei began his film career with a horror movie (Be My Cat: A Film for Anne (2015)) was his theory that horror films put a mirror in front of the audiences, a mirror in which they see reflected their darkest and most violent subconscious impulses, and so they become aware of them and get to control them in real life, thus becoming better persons.

The character played by Adrian Tofei in Be My Cat: A Film for Anne (2015) was developed by Adrian over the course of 5 years. It started as a 15 min monologue in a theatre play in college, then Adrian transformed it into a full length 50 min one-man-show called The Monster, and ultimately, inspired by the success of The Monster in festivals, Adrian adapted his one-man-show character for the movie. Be My Cat was initially supposed to be an adaptation of The Monster, but as the project evolved, it became an original story and Adrian kept only elements of the main character's psychology.

Adrian Tofei, who came from a background in method acting and theatre (Ion Cojar's method), partially improvised Be My Cat: A Film for Anne (2015) in his hometown in Romania on a limited budget as director, producer, writer, lead actor, editor, cinematographer and most other jobs usually performed by a film crew, he never used a camera before in his life, had no crew present during shootings other than him and the actresses, partially lived in character, met the actresses for the first time in character with the camera on, and kept only first takes in the final cut. A language switch was used during filming to ensure the safety of everyone involved: speaking English meant everyone is interacting in character, and speaking Romanian meant everyone returns to be being themselves (with a few exceptions when the characters had to speak Romanian). Filming was preceded by months of preparation via emails and phone calls between Tofei and the three actresses.

Adrian Tofei shot Be My Cat: A Film for Anne (2015) and We Put the World to Sleep without any crew members present. Looking for authentic acting performances, he shot the movies alone with the actors in order to create similar circumstances to those surrounding the characters they play. This method was also a perfect fit for the budgetary constraints.

Adrian Tofei chose Anne Hathaway as his character's obsession in Be My Cat: A Film for Anne (2015) because she had to be a worldwide known celebrity so audiences everywhere would connect to the film, had to have something to do with cats since Adrian's role was inspired from a character he played in a one-man-show that had some issues with cats, and had to be an actress Tofei genuinely appreciates so he could transform his appreciation into obsession for his role. Adrian Tofei was blown away by Anne Hathaway's performance in Les Misérables (2012) and his character in the movie was blown away by her performance in The Dark Knight Rises (2012).

During the 7 years of production on We Put the World to Sleep, Adrian Tofei and Duru Yücel lived partially in character and held world views slightly similar to those of his character. Adrian does not remember exactly how much his personal views preceded the character and inspired it, or vice-versa, living in character influenced his personal views.

Adrian Tofei and Duru Yücel shot We Put the World to Sleep over a period of 5 years (7 years with pre & post-production) in 13 cities, villages and remote locations across Romania, Turkey and Ukraine, using a diverse international cast. They faced numerous challenges over the years, and the production took a toll on their personal lives as well due to the extensive periods of living in character (ironically, the movie deals with exactly this issue).

Adrian Tofei's filmmaking method usually consists of working for months or even years on an alternative psychological reality for the actors including himself, partially living in character, so that when they start improvising, Adrian mainly needs to record the unfolding events and to make sure the improvisation goes in the right direction. The script mostly consists of plot points. Adrian Tofei shoots tens of hours of footage guerrilla style and then watches the footage like a documentary filmmaker would and creates the details of the story in post-production during the editing process.

The movies Be My Cat: A Film for Anne (2015), We Put the World to Sleep and Pure are part of a trilogy made by Adrian Tofei and his life and creative partner Duru Yücel. All three movies are radically different from each other, yet together they form a cohesive universe. The trilogy is symmetric in 3 essential ways. Symmetry no. 1: Be My Cat anchored in the lower self (irrational instincts and impulses, the subconscious), We Put the World to Sleep anchored in the middle self (the conscious rational mind), and Pureanchored in the higher self (mysteries beyond reason, the supraconscious). Symmetry no. 2: Be My Cat 50% scripted and 50% improvised, We Put the World to Sleep 25% scripted and 75% improvised, and Pure 75% scripted and 25% improvised. Symmetry no. 3: Be My Cat with Adrian Tofei starring in the lead role, We Put the World to Sleep with both Adrian Tofei and & Duru Yücel starring in the two lead roles, and Pure with Duru Yücel starring in the lead role (in other words, the trilogy begins with Adrian and ends with Duru, whose name in Turkish means "pure").