Letter from Romania

Letter from Romania 1973

1

Part of a series of promotional films commissioned by Romania's National Tourism Office in the early 1970s with the aim of reconnecting diasporic communities with the country they left behind. In this case, the film is addressed to Jews who emigrated in the context of the Second World War or were sold by the Romanian state to the State of Israel starting in the 50s and settled in Israel and the USA - therefore, a target group made up of seniors, probably retired , possibly prosperous, eager to revisit the places of youth and willing to forget, temporarily, the traumas associated with them.

1973

Women of Today

Women of Today 1958

1

Made on the occasion of March 8, it presents a series of brief portraits of women, from various professional fields, of different ages and even of different ethnicities, pointing out the benefits that the communist organization had brought to their daily lives. A special emphasis is placed on their status as mothers and on the role of nurseries and socialist kindergartens not only in making their lives easier, but also in giving them the time they need to build a career. Another concern of the filmmaker, starting from the concrete case of one of the protagonists, is to highlight the differences between the happy present and the not-too-distant past in which someone with her social status should have dedicated herself exclusively to raising children, in hygienic and extremely difficult lives.

1958

Let All Children Smile

Let All Children Smile 1957

1

The film's protagonists are the orphaned children taken into custody by the state and institutionalized at Children's House no. 6 from Bucharest. For Mészáros, the concern for the situation of children left orphaned during the Second World War is autobiographical: the director directly experienced the absence of parents in her own childhood.

1957

Open files

Open files 1975

1

A more experimental aproach to labor protection films. In the line of Săucan's style, the soundtrack is as important as the image, the threatening music, full of shrillness, composed by Ion Dumitrescu potentiating the visual construction that mixes - in a montage reminiscent of the Soviet avant-garde school of the 1920s - all kinds of shooting techniques and frame combinations.

1975

The Diary of Florica S.

The Diary of Florica S. 1975

1

Director Eugenia Gutu offers a feminist critique of gender (in)equality under socialism in this documentary portrait of an industrializing town and its model citizen, Florica S.

1975

Re-enactment

Re-enactment 1960

5.50

In 1959, in Romania, six former members of the nomenclature and the secret police organize a hold up of the National Bank. After their arrest, the state forces them to play themselves in a film which reconstitutes the crime and the investigation. At the end of their trial, filmed live, they are sentenced to death and executed. except the women, Monica Sevianu that due to the fact that she had 2 children she was punished to do hard work for life.

1960

Adolescence

Adolescence 1969

6.00

"This wonderful age in life where every thought strives toward an ideal, toward work, toward the future." Sahia Studios propaganda flick about how adults and their "those darn kids" attitudes affect adolescents.

1969

The School of the Meri Village

The School of the Meri Village 1964

1

You must have passed through here at least once, says the voiceover commentary during the opening shots of this film. We learn that express trains pass through Meri without stopping and goods trains slow down, but don’t stop. Only the 7:01 commuter train stops, for just a minute, long enough for the teaching staff to alight. Dedicated to all those who live and work in isolated corners of the country, the film conjures up a small, remote world, virtually unknown to wider audiences.

1964

Case D

Case D 1966

6.00

A compassionate portrait of a lonely old man’s attempt to reconnect with his estranged family is transformed into an investigative cinema verité procedural.

1966

Tăbăcării

Tăbăcării 1963

6.00

An illustration of the evolution of the working conditions in the communist era, compared to the interwar period, using as a pretext a recently modernized factory in Jilava, presented in a mirror with the one described in a 1934 report by Geo Bogza.

1963

Along the Frumoasa Valley

Along the Frumoasa Valley 1974

1

The industrial site, the dam under construction and the colony of workers’ housing attached to them are among the favourite spaces of the Sahia documentary, especially during the last decade of the communist regime. The work on the country’s numerous industrial sites is a constant theme included in the annual Thematic Plans of the studio, therefore repeatedly fixed on film and repeatedly missed, or at least simplified by the documentaries of the time, always completed under the pressure of the political imperative.

1974

How do we follow the rules of the road?

How do we follow the rules of the road? 1963

1

"This rediscovered film directed by Slavomir Popovici (under his Romanian name, Miron Slavu) was made on command of the Capital's Militsiya. The movie starts from the playful premise that two undisciplined pedestrians are in charge of the city's traffic. Popovici uses this opportunity to stage an anarchic choreography in the city's centre, the film being closer to an avant-garde study. Just like in The Plant, the director abandons linear dramaturgy and chooses to make a playful exercise, a cinematographic exploration of movement and space."

1963

The Plant

The Plant 1963

1

"Filmed at "May the First" plant in Ploiești withe the occasion of the International Labor Day, The Plant is presented as a universe in itself, one which materialises the consubtantiality between social and technologic progress. Popovici felt his film must be a poem that can match the size of its subject. Thus, it became a juxtaposition of "cinematographic ideas related to one of the largest plants in the country". Inspired by soviet avant-garde, the director searches for a revolutionary aesthetic, one able to capture the rupture caused by the New Socialist Order. "

1963

Industrial Robots

Industrial Robots 1983

1

" A popularisation film, based on our researches and discoveries in the domain of the most advanced branch of technology, an attempt of clarifying the principles by which these strong helpers of men function, especially of how their "senses" systems work. "

1983

Newsreel Nr. 6-7/1954: Fighting the Snow

Newsreel Nr. 6-7/1954: Fighting the Snow 1954

1

"Fighting the Snow", which was subsequently also known as "Blizzard" represents a double feature, 6&7, of the "Actualitatea în Imagini" series. Directed by Mirel Ilieșu, it was filmed during the rough days of February 1954, when Romania faced a massive blizzard which targeted the capital city, eastern and south-eastern parts of the country, in three waves: 1-14, 17-19 and 22-24 of February. Part of the series made at "Alexandru Sahia" Studios. Awarded newsreel at Karlovy-Vary in 1954.

1954