Radu Jude’s Diary of a Chambermaid featured at AFI FEST

Romanian filmmaker Radu Jude’s film, Diary of a Chambermaid, was featured at this year’s AFI FEST. Described as a variation on Octave Mirbeau’s 1900 novel, the film updates the story to modern-day France.

The narrative follows Gianina (Ana Dumitrascu), a Romanian migrant worker employed as a housekeeper and nanny for a bourgeois couple, Pierre (Vincent Macaigne) and Marguerite (Mélanie Thierry), in Bordeaux. While the employers maintain an exterior of respect and even encourage Gianina to participate in a local theatrical production of the original novel, the film explores underlying themes of exploitation and selfishness.

Through a diaristic structure, the film tracks Gianina’s life as she balances her domestic duties with her desire to return to Romania to visit her mother and daughter. The production incorporates scenes of Gianina rehearsing in a community theater project that casts migrants as actors, allowing Jude to interrogate history and provocation through reenactment.