For Something Familiar, her debut feature, Rachel Taparjan picked a topic that is not only very personal to her, but also turned out to be full of trauma. Just read the logline for the documentary: “While helping a woman search for her birth mother, Taparjan is drawn into her own family history, uncovering a dark legacy that has loomed over its women.”
The doc will world premiere in the main competition of the 23rd edition of Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival, CPH:DOX, on Tuesday, March 17.
“After Mihaela reaches out to Taparjan to help her find her birth mother, they set off for Romania, returning to the orphanage where they were both adopted,” reads a synopsis for Something Familiar. “What Mihaela uncovers in the search makes her question her entire identity. It also draws Rachel into her own journey through her family’s past, unveiling a painful legacy that has loomed over its women, which they shared despite the separation.”
In what feels like an attempt to find some clarity or catharsis, or simply to explore possibilities, the filmmaker also enlists actresses to sit in for her mother in a chair across from her.
A dissection of family bonds, absence, and trauma, Something Familiar also explores if self-authorship can rewrite familiar narratives.
Taparjan, who is British Romanian, has directed documentary shorts. Something Familiar was selected for Presented at Cannes Docs 2025 as part of the docs-in-progress showcase and won the Chicken & Egg Vision Award. The Romanian–British co-production, produced by Monica Lăzurean-Gorgan and Elena Martin for Manifest Film in Romania and Aleksandra Bilic for My Accomplice in the U.K., was co-produced by Dermot O’Dempsey in association with Shudder Films. Sales are being handled by Stranger Films Sales
‘Something Familiar’
Courtesy of Stranger Films Sales
“The challenges involved with inhabiting the role of filmmaker and subject have presented a familiar but unique challenge. How can I be your reliable narrator in a documentary film, when I don’t trust reality?” Taparjan points out in a director’s statement. “How can I be open and authentic on camera when hiding and shape-shifting has kept me alive? In other words, how can I achieve the impossible?”
She also highlights: “I want to usurp pre-existing narratives about my chosen subjects, be it sex work (Mind the Gap), poverty tourism (Where are you coming from?), or indeed Romanian orphans (Something Familiar).”
Concludes Taparjan: “In making an explicitly personal film, I have experienced the alchemical potential of self-authorship in the face of a traumatic past – a way to reimagine adversity as adventure, a way to make something familiar feel brand new, a way of offering yourself a story you can bear to live with! In the words of George Bernard Shaw: ‘If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.’ The ultimate triumph over trauma is play!”
THR can now exclusively premiere a trailer for the doc. And since it is the story of Rachel and Mihaela, we’ll let them take you on a trip to Romania to explore… Something Familiar.
