Romanian Cinematic Experiments

An intimate, overcast film, AUTISM splits open the claustrophobic heart of depression and looks at its psychologically and physically debilitating effects. Dividing its thematic and formal construction among oppositional lines, the film looks at the oppressive, external forces (e.g. politics, religion) that bear down on the soul of man. Trapped between the claustrophobia of the young, depressive protagonist and his apartment, we observe him going about his daily routine, in an attempt to stave off a growing anxiety. Through the power of exposition, cinema thus becomes the therapeutic catharsis for both protagonist and viewer alike. (Andrei Tănăsescu, BIEFF)

The 20th century gets broken down to its essentials, in Mircea Bobînă’s history lesson CINESCOPE. Formally recalling the intellectual montage of the Soviets as well as the ironic humour of Bruce Conner, archive footage and historical moments are cut together to sequence the might and plight of modern man. Carried by narrated poetry and pointed nursery rhymes, the film reveals its titular double-entendre as both a microscopic macro-vision of modern civilization and a confirmation for the cinematic dramaturgy that fuels the mechanism of life. (Andrei Tănăsescu, BIEFF)

Under the Warden Collective creative trademark, in DAUGHTER OF THE EARTH, Romanian folklore gets a 21st century make-over courtesy of director Vlad Feneșan. The proverbial growth of the soil is fused with folk stories and the myth of creation, to deliver an audio-visual pastiche of the highest (dis)order. Combining traditional costumes and their visual patterning with a pixel aesthetic (similarly present in the 8-bit sounds of the genre-hopping electronic soundtrack), primordial man and woman beget from the soil a new life after a ritualistic dance. Feneșan’s accentuated aesthetics update Romanian tradition in glitzy, glamorous but also playful manner, bridging the gap of history and tradition. (Andrei Tănăsescu, BIEFF)       

An unconventional re-visitation of mythology is the conceptual piece DEATH BY DIAMONDS & PEARLS, signed by Carioca Studio. "Evoking cultural references, historical moments, and social rebellion, the film proposes connections between old and new and brings into spotlight transformations that took place due to the passing of time. It explores notions of myth, violence, hypocrisy, lust for power, duality. A corrupt world, split between abusers and their victims. Above all there is a punishing force of justice that resets the general equilibrium. The artists question the idea of human condition during different time periods and our interaction with this spiritual belonging. This makes the audience think of issues concerning the significance and presence of myths in our life in the 21st century." (Carioca Studio)

Further into the surreal realm, there is the idiosyncratic FISH, signed by visual artist Delia Oniga. “Absurd is that which is devoid of purpose” proclaimed Eugene Ionesco. But what do you call that which consciously goes against its purpose? Two fish wake up from their cryogenic slumber as water swallows them and the ornate plate they’re photogenically placed on. Bubbling brooks and mumbled songs sonically engulf the titular partners’ travels as crickets chirp away into the domestic space they’ve infiltrated. The fish float, they party, they float some more and by the time their pescaterian fever dream ends, fish and film alike are dead in the water. As avant-garde as salmon is avant-current, FISH is an astute and witty paradigm shift. (Andrei Tănăsescu, BIEFF)

I WILL NEVER WALK ALONE by Carmen Lidia Vidu (known for her innovative multimedia performances) lends an ear to the voice within us all, presenting a space for the contradiction between our inner Ego and Super-Ego to reveal itself. A female narrator runs through a series of confessions, repeating her childlike vocal mirror’s high-pitched utterances. Still images of a female figure fade from one to the next, as coloured plasmic auras cover up her face. As darkness creeps over her portrait, the tension revealed between the narrator’s inner and outer personas peels away the layers of loneliness. In the process, the director reminds our inner ID that we never truly are alone. (Andrei Tănăsescu, BIEFF)

Inspired by Susan Sontag’s dictum (“time eventually positions most photographs, even the most amateurish, at the level of art”), ON PHOTOGRAPHY is a deceptively playful musing on cinema. Divided along a 3x3 split-screen, the film assembles Ana Ularu’s syncopated and disordered iterations of Sontag’s maxim, with each repeated utterance bringing in semantic alignment the haphazard vocal montage. Visual artist Alex Gâlmeanu’s semiotic puzzle thus compels the viewer to re-assemble the jumbled message while simultaneously playing catch-up within the split-screen montage. Conceptually astute, the film is a fitting homage to time, the value it imparts to objects and to the spectator as their mediator. (Andrei Tănăsescu, BIEFF)

PLEASE BE PATIENT (WHILE WE FUCK YOU) is a metaphor about the society we live in and the direction it is heading to if driven solely by profit. Banks and corporations are more powerful than the state, making their own rules and standards by ignoring human rights and considering people to be objects, numbers or statistics, which must be used for maximum profit with minimum investment. This can be seen by the way companies treat and talk to people, like slaves, without even trying to hide it. All made possible by a herd mentality, lack of independent thought and of initiative on the part of the individual. Although abuses can reach way beyond the absurd, a lot of people accept them, without raising any questions or doing anything about it. (Andrei Popa)

SILENT PLACES is a unique collaboration between the choreographer-director Simona Deaconescu and cinematographer Oleg Mutu, in which dance is not illustrated, but interpreted and reinterpreted via cinematic language. Silent Places is a dance-based film examining the inner life of the characters, capturing their perplexities, questions and fears in a moment of intimacy. Cruelty and frenzy, childhood and feelings for which there are no words but which we all feel, the anguish of mind and inner chaos and recovery of equilibrium are the feelings restored in the crowded consciousness of the characters; self-evaluation. Through movement and action the 5 characters depict feelings that turn into agony, people are prisoners of infinite freedom in an infinite space. (Hotnews)

Yet another sample of creatively repurposing found footage, intelligently combined with fictional elements, THE GOLDEN DREAM is an attempt of deconstructing the communication process, using as a pretext the exponents of two most representative forms of propaganda encountered in recent history. The experimental film captures Adolf Hitler’s defining non-verbal, body language elements, superimposed on the very original speech of Nicolae Ceausescu, with the purpose of observing effective manipulation techniques. (Alex Mironescu)