A couple in turmoil on the trail of a tigress who escaped from a zoo

“Tigress” tells the story of a marital crisis in the middle of a hunt organized to find a tigress who has escaped from a zoo.

First film by Romanian director Andrei Tanase, Tigress tells the story of Vera and Toma, a couple in crisis, whose peak is reached at the very moment when they have to find a tigress who escaped from the zoo where Vera works as a veterinarian. Contrary to what the title might suggest, this first film, which is released in theaters on August 7, 2024, is not a film for children.

Vera works as a veterinarian in a zoo in a small Romanian town. With her team and the police force, she rescued a tigress adopted by a mafia family, who kept the beast in a cage at the bottom of a swimming pool. Vera lost a child a few weeks after its birth, and discovers that day when she comes home from work that Toma, her husband, is cheating on her.

After spending the night in the zoo, a disemboweled deer is discovered hanging from the zoo’s fences. The tigress is no longer in her cage. Vera forgot to close the door. A hunt for the wild beast begins in the forest and then in the suburbs of the city.

Toma accompanies Vera and her strange team made up of police officers, but also the former owners of the beast, and two young women encountered on the way to find the tigress.

This first feature film by the Romanian director Andrei Tănase skillfully stages a drama within the drama. The escape of the beast, an event of extreme dramatic intensity, echoes the intimate tragedy experienced by the couple, who are clearly still recovering from the disappearance of their child.

It is thus during this hunt to find the tigress that the questions ruminated since the baby’s death will crystallize, express themselves and possibly be resolved, or even shed light on the time that preceded its birth. The tigress’s escape and the danger appear as the allegory of a love story in danger. Vera, by forgetting to close the door of the cage, lets not only the tigress escape, but also the wild beast that has been going round in circles in her head for months. The director very subtly paints in the background Romanian society, marked by social fractures and corruption.

The film offers very beautiful shots of the animals in the zoo, which appears as a parallel world inhabited by singular beings, with whom Vera and her fellow keepers have forged bonds. In a tight staging (the film lasts 1h19), the film manages to keep us in suspense from start to finish and to move us thanks to the intensity of the actress Catalina Moga, whom the camera almost never leaves, very accurate in the role of this woman invaded by her emotions, in connection with the animal world and more particularly with the fleeing tigress.

Gender : Drama
Director: Andrei Tanase
Actors: Catalina Moga, Paul Ipate, Alex Velea
Country : Romania/France/Greece
Duration : 1h19
Exit : August 7th 2024
Distributer : Condor Distribution
Synopsis : Having recently lost a baby, Vera, a veterinarian, consoles herself by taking care of a female tiger who has just arrived at her zoo. One evening, after she has just surprised her husband in the act of adultery, Vera, drunk with anger, forgets to close the cage of the beast, which runs away. The next day, the young woman and her husband take the lead of an improbable expedition to find the animal. More than the search for a tiger on the run, this hunt becomes for Vera a real introspection on her life, her relationship and her aspirations.