Directed by Sebastian Voinea

Romania/ 2021/ Fiction/ Drama/ Tragicomedy/ 17 minutes

In a border village, an unforeseen event takes place before the inauguration of the monument dedicated to the national poet. The incident takes an unexpected turn, but it will find its solution in an original way.  

IMDb

Director’s Statement:

Based on a true story that happened in a Romanian village located on the border, the film captures the evolution of the inner drama of a patriotic professor, witness to the desecration of the statue of the national poet, Mihai Eminescu, and implicitly of national identity, and on the other hand the hypocrisy of the local authorities who do everything they can to diminish the gravity of the offensive act and to cover up the whole situation. Although the tension and conflict will gradually increase as we move forward in the story, the topic will be treated in an absurd and ironic key, sprinkled with black humor throughout the film. The film aims to deeply analyze the operating levers of the mentality of nowadays society represented by the collective character, the authorities, and on the other side by the teacher devoted to national ideals who seems to be the only one in the whole community who wants justice and the truth to come out. The short film will combine two different styles of filming: the classic one on the tripod and the modern one, dynamic, by hand-held, just to distinguish the two different ways of narration that are subtly intertwined in the story. The collective story of the whole community will be filmed statically, thus suggesting an objective and somewhat detached point of view from the story. But the hand-held footage, through the reporters’ TV camera, will provoke the viewer’s feeling of eyewitness, of effective involvement in the topic of the film and at the same time of empathy with the teacher’s inner drama. The cinematic style of shooting will try to highlight the dramatic meanings of the story and to suggestively draw the relationships between the characters. The chromatics of the picture is a defining element in creating the visual atmosphere of the film, and the predominant colors will be cold to induce a feeling of tension and conflict, but also to suggest a glacial and distant connection, as is in fact Covalciuc’s relationship with village authorities. The diegetic sound and the music of film, which will be exclusively instrumental, will unite all the dimensions of the film, which aims to constitute an observational and at the same time contemplative narrative structure. I intend by the chosen topic and directorial style of shooting, combining the visual classic way of narration with a modern and dynamic one, to induce to the spectator that feeling of active participant in the struggle for truth sustained by the main character, because such acts of vandalism must not be tolerated in any form and as preventable as possible. Exploring the unusual topic, the film will have a particular atmosphere and will express originality. Nothing will look pathetic, fake or artificial. This attitude is edifying and suggestive, because I want this short film to be easy to watch and open to the general audience.