According to legend, on his arrival in Romania, St. Andrew took shelter in a cave. Striking the ground with his walking stick, water started pouring from a fountain with which he then baptized the locals and cured the ill, thus converting the region to Christianity. In a rural area of modern day Romania, deeply marked by religion, Safta leaves her daily routine and goes in search of the village veterinarian, who can save the ailing cow that is the livelihood of the family. But a bizarre encounter with a child who comes to her on the path brings back decisions from the past that have never ceased to haunt her. It’s St. Andrew’s Day, none other, and the child asks for water, claiming his baptism and redemption. An ill-omened black dog evokes death. “Sete” (Thirst) is a dismal portrait, between fiction and memory, of a rural Romania immersed in haze and superstition. The script does a superb job of establishing atmosphere, time, space, action and tension and it won first prize in the Script Contest, in Vlad Ghinea’s home country, which in turn, allowed him to direct the film that now premieres in Curtas Vila do Conde. (IR)