Thrilled to announce that the short film OCTOPUS, by Romanian filmmaker George Dogaru, will open the 13th edition of the Borrego Springs International Film Festival in California.

OCTOPUS was premiered at the prestigious Transylvania International Film Festival.

George Dogaru is one of Romania’s most highly regarded filmmakers. He is a regular at festivals that qualify for the Hollywood Oscars and the European Film Academy Awards.

Director’s Statement:

Octopus is a story born from a personal reflection on childhood fears and the silent ways in which children cope with trauma. I wanted to explore the inner life of a boy who, at first glance, seems perfectly ordinary – but whose imagination becomes both his refuge and his weapon.

For me, Albert reflects something universal: the feeling of powerlessness in the face of adult cruelty, the confusion of a world that appears unfair and threatening, and the desperate need to reclaim even a fragment of control. Through his drawings – and the strange gift that allows them to come alive – Albert reclaims that control in the only way he knows: by transforming his own fear into a weapon, forcing those around him to feel the very terror that has shaped his existence.

In this story, there is no line between fantasy and reality – because there is no fantasy. Everything Albert imagines is real, solid, inescapable. The extraordinary seeps gently into the ordinary without spectacle or warning. It is not magic; it is the quiet logic of a mind cornered by loneliness and fear.

Visually, the world of Octopus is bright, deceptively full of color – because depression often wears cheerful clothes. This contrast was essential to me: to build a world where suffering hides behind light, where dread dresses itself in playful tones, and fear grows silently beneath the surface of the everyday. I wanted the audience to sense this dissonance – the uneasy weight hidden under apparent normalcy.

In the end, Octopus is not a story of triumph or survival. It is a story of escape – but of the final, irreversible kind. Albert’s last gesture is not victory, but surrender: stepping fully into the world he created, leaving behind the one that has broken him. Octopus is, above all, a quiet tale of invisible tragedy – the kind that unfolds unnoticed, when no one is truly looking.

A farewell whispered by a child who was never truly seen.

In a few days, we will announce more good news about this magnificent European film production. Stay tuned.

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