Directed by George Dogaru
Country: Romania
Running time: 15’27”
Genre: Fiction
Subgenre & tags: Drama, Children, Youth, Social, HHRR, European, Author cinema, Independent cinema, Fantasy, Family,

Synopsis

A young boy’s imagination begins to blur the lines of reality, leaving the adults around him uncertain about what’s real. As his uncanny abilities begin to grow, they’re forced to ask: is it a gift—or a curse?

Director’s State

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.