FILMS

The Magician

The story describes a historical day in Sulina at the beginning of the 20th century when the first electric plant is inaugurated. “The Magician” is a story about fate and inner magic as opposed to the empty promises of modern age. The film is a fight between two types of perspectives on things, between two types of illusions: one about pregress and future, and the other one about the values of the past.

Boxing with Myself

This documentary follows the life and work of the Romanian visual artist Ion Grigorescu (born in 1945), one of the pioneers of the experimental art in Europe. Even if his works are part of the permanent collections of MoMa New York, Tate Modern London or Centre Pompidou Paris, among many others, he is not known to the larger Romanian publics and that’s why this film will have an educational component besides the aesthetic and the artistic ones. Ion Grigorescu has also seen as an aesthetic pattern for an entire generation of younger artists like Adrian Ghenie, Mircea Cantor, or Ciprian Muresan.

The documentary is structured by chapters, featuring the leading themes and ideas. It is a film performance with an interwoven structure created by the parallel presence of the author and the main character. From time to time the artist becomes the observer and commentator in the regard of the director. That gives a feeling of fluid, dynamic, and active process. The images follow a conceptual order not a chronological one, the imposed rhythm being the heartbeat of the film.

The long or poetical scenes don’t fit because this is not an insubstantial laudatio, but an honest and blunt narration of the real life of an artist told by himself. There is no nostalgia or embellishment involved, it is just a cleansing anamnesis for both the public and the film makers. Everybody will question on their own evanescent existence, morality, and spirituality. Ultimately, the film interrogates the possible extent of the inglorious recollection of our own biography. The documentary is built in a way that the ideas don’t need any further examination: the dialogue is mostly a monologue based on the balance between the total involvement and complicity, between generous patience and direct intervention, between analysis and distant observation.

To live is to tell

We survive to tell of the painful reminders of the trauma experienced by our brothers and sisters in a dark period of Romanian history. When society, fueled by anti-Semitic sentiments and legislation, witnessed impassively, or worse still was complicit in the unspeakable crimes against our Jewish compatriots during World War II.
The film presents images in premiere from the Book “About the Legionary Organization” (Aiud 1964) and for the first time establishes a direct connection between the confessions of the legionary criminals recorded in this manuscript and the memories of the survivors of their atrocities.

Borders

In a small border village, the statue of the National Poet is found desecrated. Amidst general indifference, only the Romanian literature teacher cares, too much, perhaps.

Red Man

The nostalgia of an age perceived by some as glorious sometimes causes a personal faith to become permanent and unforgettable.

For Petre Ignatencu, a romanian canoeist and a taxi driver in his 60s, the collapse of communism in his country a quarter of a century ago this December was a grave mistake. For years, the former Securitate officer has taken it upon himself to lay wreaths at the graves of Romania’s communist-era leaders, as well as visit the sites of key episodes in the country’s communist past to lay flowers. Now he’s hoping to officially revive the Party, with himself as the new leader.

FESTIVALS

2019 – Cinepolitica – political film festival Bucharest – Special Mention (cinepolitica.ro)
2018 – Astra film festival Sibiu – Presentation (astrafilm.ro)
2019 – Cronograf fest – Chisinau, Moldova – Selections (cronograf.md)
2019 – FESTIVAL INTERNATIONAL DU FILM D’HISTOIRE – Selections (cinema-histoire-pessac.com)

The Christmas Gift

On 20th of December, 1989, a few days after Ceausescu’s bloody repression in Timisoara, a father’s quiet evening turns to sheer ordeal as he finds out that his little son has mailed a wish letter to Santa. As the kid understood, his father’s desire was to see Ceausescu dead.

Negruzzi 14

In May 2013, a house was to be demolished. A few artists were called for proposals in what was to become a one-off during a day and a night exhibition about loss and disappearance. The movie premiered at the National Museum of Contemporary Arts in Bucharest, October 2016.

The Semmelweis Reflex

The Semmelweis reflex or “Semmelweis effect” is a metaphor for the reflex-like tendency to reject new evidence or new knowledge because it contradicts established norms, beliefs, or paradigms.

Spid

Two quarreling youngsters get into one cab at night without knowing that the driver is madly desperate to re-conquer his ex-girlfriend and willing to do anything to have her back. Including a car crash.

Half Shaved

At the beginning of 1991, after the Romanian Revolution, an old barber meets by chance his former torturer who came in for a shave. Quickly, the roles are reversed though the client refuses to acknowledge that he has been recognized. He says that it is a mistake but to no avail because the barber is convinced he is right. And while the latter holds the razor against the client’s neck, he gets scarier and scarier wishing for revenge and payback time. Will the victim spare his former torturer?