We Put the World to Sleep

While making an apocalyptic film about two lovers ending the world, Adrian and Duru get lost in the characters they play and embark on a secret mission to end the world for real to save it from suffering. What follows goes beyond their wildest imagination.

  • Adrian Țofei
    Director
    Be My Cat: A Film for Anne (2015)
  • Adrian Țofei
    Writer
    Be My Cat: A Film for Anne (2015)
  • Adrian Țofei
    Key Cast
    Be My Cat: A Film for Anne (2015)
  • Duru Yücel-Țofei
    Key Cast
    Grandpas Know Best (2012)
  • Erisse Peterson
    Key Cast
  • Andreea Enciu
    Key Cast
    Autograph (2019)
  • Danha Yunes
    Key Cast
  • Adrian Țofei
    Producer
    Be My Cat: A Film for Anne (2015)
  • Duru Yücel-Țofei
    Co-producer
  • Danha Yunes, Jay Sorensen, Brandon Hart, Ricky Chen, Jacob Hair, Naomi Goff
    Executive Producers
  • Sarp Onat Yücel, Mladen Adamovic, Ben MacCormack, Marcel
    Associate Producers
  • Adrian Țofei
    Film Editing, Cinematography, Sound
  • Adrian Țofei
    Casting, Production Management
  • Project Type:
    Feature
  • Genres:
    Apocalyptic Sci-Fi, Dark Romance, Psychological Thriller, Metaphysical Drama, Adventure, Mystery, Mockumentary, Cinema Verite, Mumblecore, Meta-cinema, Docu-fiction, Hybrid, Psychotronic, Antihero
  • Runtime:
    1 hour 20 minutes
  • Production Budget:
    50,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    Romania
  • Country of Filming:
    Romania, Turkey, Ukraine
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital HD
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Adrian Țofei

Adrian Țofei is an acclaimed filmmaker and actor born on July 20, 1987 in Rădăuți, Romania. His father died when he was six and his mother, Dorina Țofei, supported him watching movies from an early age. 2001: A Space Odyssey left a strong impression on Adrian as a teen, who began researching film history in his spare time. He went on to study acting (Ion Cojar‘s method) at Lower Danube University of Galați and continued with a master’s degree in theatrical art at Spiru Haret University of Bucharest, all while directing, producing, writing and performing in various plays, most notably The Monster, which went to multiple festivals.

In 2013 Adrian abandoned theatre, wrote the Found Footage Manifesto and plunged into filmmaking and film acting. He directed, produced, wrote and starred in Romania’s first found footage horror feature film, Be My Cat: A Film for Anne (2015). The movie went to numerous festivals and won multiple awards and critical acclaim, including Best Film at A Night of Horror Film Festival in Sydney and Best Actor for Adrian at Nashville Film Festival. It was called “terrifying” by Austin Chronicle and “a new intelligent found footage film you need to see” by Blumhouse, got listed by Dread Central in “top 5 best horror movies of 2016” and holds a fresh score of 83% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Adrian is also the author of the Top 100 Horror & Fantasy Film Festivals and Top 100 International Film Festivals lists, among other works, both appreciated and used by numerous filmmakers.

He has been married to actress and screenwriter Duru Yücel-Țofei since January 22, 2017, and they also became partners onscreen in the upcoming apocalyptic feature We Put the World to Sleep. The movie is the second part of Adrian Țofei’s meta-cinema trilogy which also includes Be My Cat: A Film for Anne and Adrian’s third movie, Dr. Frankenstein, currently in development.

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Director Statement

My filmmaking method consists of working for months on an alternative psychological reality for the actors including myself, partially living in character, so that when we start improvising, I mainly need to record the unfolding events and to make sure the improvisation goes in the right direction. There is no script, only plot points. I shoot tens of hours of footage guerrilla style (over 90 hours for We Put the World to Sleep), and then I watch the footage like a documentary filmmaker would and I create the details of the story in post-production during the editing process.