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Stories from the border zone

Poftiti va rog (Please!) / Gazda (Host)
Regissør: Serestély Szilárd,Mircea Sorin Albutiu
(Romania, 2018 / Romania, 2017)

Romania is struggling with population decline and emigration. The film scene in the country, on the other hand, is both dynamic and growing, something this year's Transilvania International Film Festival highlighted.




(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)

If one had based solely on the coverage of European media, one could easily have been led to believe that Romania is a smaller country both in terms of population and area than its neighbor in the west, Hungary. The newsworthy reader will probably be able to identify Hungary's autocratic and Putin-loving Prime Minister Viktor Orban, whose open illiberal politics and frequent outbursts have made him one of the most easily recognizable and influential politicians in the continent's central / eastern region. Few outside Romania, on the other hand, will find out President Klaus Iohannis or Prime Minister Viorica Dancila.

That the latter is relatively unknown to most is understandable; She has only been in power since January, after street protests against a proposed change to the country's corruption laws forced Sorin Grindeanus's departure after only six months at the helm. These demonstrations did indeed create international headlines, but after the stormy December days in 1989 – when long-time Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was swiftly overthrown – Romania has rarely figured in global consciousness.

TIFF is one of the most dynamic film festivals in the former Eastern bloc.

One important reason for this is that Romania has so far proved to be relatively immune to the populist wave that has swept over large parts of Europe over the past decade, and the progress of international media daily follows in detail. But this is actually the EU's seventh largest member country in terms of population – 19 million – and the ninth largest in terms of area. Romania is actually twice as populous and three times as large as Hungary.

Dynamic movie scene

Within the film field, Romania – a Romanian "new wave" identified by critics over a decade ago – continues to assert itself, and so it does. While Hungary won the Golden Bear in Berlin last year, for Ildikó Enyedis On Body And Soul, Romania has won the same prize twice in the last five years: Adina Pintilies Touch Me Not In February this year, the company repeated the 2013 winner, Calin Peter Netzers Child's Pose. This century's most acclaimed Romanian film, Cristian Mungius 4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days, won the Gold Palm in Cannes in 2007, a triumph Hungary so far has not achieved.

Five years earlier, Mungiu received his first major award when his directorial debut West won the Transilvania award during the first Transilvania International Film Festival (TIFF) in Cluj-Napoca. In the 16 consecutive years, Cluj has become Romania's unofficial capital, and TIFF has emerged as one of the most dynamic film events in the former Eastern bloc.

This year most domestic productions received a lukewarm reception at TIFF, but those who moved into more marginal areas were rewarded. A competition for local filmmakers resulted in the screening of six short films, of which two low-budget documentaries stood out.

Cluj-based filmmaker / skateboarder Serestély Szilárd was awarded the second prize of the competition for her 21 minute long Poftiti va rog (Please!) – "The Golden Brush" (sponsored by an art center located in a closed brush factory) and 300 euros. While this is only one-fifth of the prize paid to this year's winner of the Transilvania Prize (Paraguay's The Heiresses), the sum is hardly less than the entire budget for Serestély's short film, which was filmed in the ugly Marasti district from summer 2016 to spring 2018.

Please

For students of Communist-era architecture, Marasti is a kind of concrete miracle: Dozens of eye-catching apartment blocks built by Soviet and North Korean architects in the period 1970-1989, for workers at the CUG car factory close by. The tourists who fill the streets of Cluj's historic center rarely come here, and Marasti has remained a working-class quarter; Among the district's countless street kitchens are a couple of shops that serve the fat-dripping, tasty smallthe sausages.

welcome please is a tender portrait of two disadvantaged people.

This provides the poor frame for a tender portrait of two disadvantaged people who mainly live on the street: the elderly widow Anikó, who makes a living by selling flowers on the main street, and the outlaw Catalin, who greets her ugly surroundings in the face of friendly reckless indifference. Serestély portrays both protagonists with modesty (the director is neither heard nor seen), in a film whose rich nocturnal cinematography gives the poverty-ridden subjects both dignity and (a kind of faded) greatness.

The director uses neither voiceover nor explanatory text before the cast, which in a touching way connects Anikó and Catalin's fates, but the film lacks any clear narrative voice. The visual contrast between rich and poor in today's Romania is convincingly conveyed: Beautiful cars rush down the boulevard in Fast & Furioustempo while outriggers rotate around in the trash cans; a bank's office premises line up in polished glass and steel next to a giant branch of the German grocery chain Lidl.

welcome please stands in a documentary tradition where individuals such as the film's (relatively affluent) audience would usually overlook or rush past the street are sympathetically treated. With his unsentimental but warm approach, Serestély (who is still in his early 20s) only exceptionally reveals his inexperience in exaggerating the background music. Otherwise, his gaze and responsiveness in dealing with the marginalized lives is impressively sharp.

Host

The depiction of the village life of the people of Mircea Sorin Albutius 40 minutes long Host (Gazda in Romanian, Khozyain in Russian) is in many ways a film about the marginal to an even greater extent. Albutiu, who has long been a photographer in and outside the Cluj area, traveled to the Romanian wild west to explore life in the village of Sfistofca, located about XNUMX kilometers from the Moldovan border and fifteen from Sulina on the Black Sea – the closest town of any size .

This is the fertile lowland around the Danube Delta, where agricultural practices are the same as they have been for decades – there is no trace of communist-era collectivization in this remote, sparsely populated corner of the country. Sfistofca's population apparently consists of only a few dozen people, but it is considered as full as a village rather than a hamlet because it can adorn itself with a church. The Russian Orthodox god-house is also a magnificent, silver-plated building that towers over the surrounding households.

Host is a low-key, alluringly beautiful work.

The focus here is on the more than sixty-year-old farmer and poet Vasile Serghevici Serbov, a member of the Russian-Lippovanian ethnic minority, whose ancestors settled in the area after a church schism in the 1700th century. According to the estimates, there are around 40 Lipovanians in Romania, and in places like Sfistofca, they fence their facial expressions, even when they are obviously well integrated.

Certain stereotypical Russian features are striking, such as the widespread love of chess. A tournament (for men only) organized by Serbov is the "main event" of the film, which otherwise only observes the lazy, hazy days in this peaceful back road. Humans seem to walk in unison with nature: Serbov's black cat is happily licking its owner's thin-haired head, his dog interrogating in the bow of a boat as it glides through one of the Danube tributaries.

Host is initially unpolished on the border of the coarse-grained – the director puts detailed focus adjustments into the long opening – but gradually establishes himself as a low-key, alluringly beautiful work. Albutius's background as a photographer is evident in his simple yet striking compositions of nature. His vision of the Danube Delta is from a time of silence and dreamy contemplation, a world or two away from the hectic urban dystopia Serestély presents.

The good life

A conglomerate of provinces with an enormous ethnic, linguistic and social diversity bears testimony to the country's incredibly complex history from its beginnings, as a kind of retirement home for eminent Roman citizens. Modern Romania is still emerging from a dark period characterized by totalitarian rule, and today is facing tough demographic trends. EU membership in 2007 has accelerated an already significant reduction in population, which is likely to continue to decline by another 17 per cent by 2050. Emigration is part of the explanation. Romania already has one of the world's fastest growing diasporas per capita, in line with war zones such as Syria, South Sudan and the Central African Republic. "Here's the good life!" rays Catalin in welcome please. Only partially joking.

Neil Young
Neil Young
Young is a regular film critic for Modern Times Review.

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