Recorded over 10 years, România Sălbatică shows the colorful beauty of Romanian nature accompanied with wildlife.
Social & External
Narrator
1 village, 1.000 tractors, 100.000 tons of cabbages & potatoes each year - which are hardly sold and eventually destroyed. Is there any way out?
Procreation is the social duty of all fertile women, was the political thinking during the 1960s and 1970s in Romania. In 1966, Ceaucescu issued Decree 770, in which he forbade abortion for all women unless they were over forty or were already taking care of four children. All forms of contraception were totally banned. The New Romanian Man was born. By 1969, the country had a million babies more than the previous average. Romanian society was rapidly changing. By using very interesting archival footage and excerpts from old fiction films and by interviewing famous personalities from that time – gynecologists or mothers who were part of the new society - the director revives this period of tremendous oppression of personal freedom. Many deaths were caused by the mere fact that women, including wives of secret Romanian agents, famous TV presenters, and actresses, had to undergo illegal abortions. Many women were jailed for having them.
A public service announcement condemning the ominous obstacle of social parasitism and delinquency amongst wayward youth unwilling to contribute to Romania’s socialist advancement.
A documentary that exposes the shocking truths behind industrial food production and food wastage, focusing on fishing, livestock and crop farming. A must-see for anyone interested in the true cost of the food on their plate.
A deceptively simple set-up: the director and his father watch a 1988 football match which the father refereed, their commentary accompanying the original television images in real time. A Bucharest derby between the country’s leading teams, Dinamo and Steaua, taking place in heavy snow, one year before the revolution that toppled Ceaușescu.
The three-hour-long documentary covers 25 years in the life of Nicolae Ceaușescu and was made using 1,000 hours of original footage from the National Archives of Romania.
The film starts with a long, static shot of the sun rising above the hills near the Roma village of Hetea in Romania. We only hear the sounds of birds, including a cuckoo. In the distance, a satellite dish figures on a roof. Slowly, the daily routine begins. We see more and more activity, like the harnessing of a horse to a cart, loading stripped tree trunks, collecting water from a pipe, playing soccer and a girl getting punished with a severe slap on her arm. These scenes are mostly captured from a distance. Then, towards noon, the fat is in the fire. The camera looks for the villagers who argue with each other and registers how an old man paces up and down the street. Because the images have not been subtitled (intentionally), the meaning of the quarrel remains unclear. The film does not mention any names or other facts, either. The absence of this context makes this documentary into a picturesque impression.
A documentary-essay which shows Costică Axinte's stunning collection of pictures depicting a Romanian small town in the thirties and forties. The narration, composed mostly from excerpts taken from the diary of a Jewish doctor from the same era, tells the rising of the antisemitism and eventually a harrowing depiction of the Romanian Holocaust.
1968, The Socialist Republic of Romania. Women catch up on the latest tendencies in beachwear, the young hippies of Hamburg are harshly criticized by Romanian students, while Nicolae Ceaușescu reads the famous defiance speech against the intervention of the Warsaw Pact troops in Czechoslovakia. Floating solemnly over all this is The Internationale, sung on a stadium by a crowd of pioneers dressed in white shirts and red ties. A certainty for each probability: the documentary is at the same time a history lesson and an ideological warning sign, the director’s endeavour permanently draws our attention to the functions of the propaganda film, yet without tarnishing the fascination that dwells in the core of the images, that of the figures that wave at us from a past buried in commonplaces and political parti pris.
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.
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.
At the beginning of the 70s, Sahia Studio produced a number of social investigations commissioned by the Central Committee of the Romanian Communist Party, intended to expose the so-called "social parasitism". The decision was taken after the theses of July 1971, which provide that "one of the main objectives of political work, especially among the youth, is the firm fight against the tendencies of parasitism, of an easy life, without work, the cultivation of responsibility and the duty to work , in the service of the country, the people, the socialist society". The most famous films, made with the competition of the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Justice, are Să treacă vara and Iarna unor pierde vară
A documentary portrait of legendary Perfect Ten gymnast Nadia Comaneci after becoming an icon in the 1976 Olympics, during her Romanian period, and her challenging years under the dictatorship of Nicolae Ceausescu.
The last days of the first Romanian king, Carol I of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, and the tough decisions he had to make in the summer of 1914 in order to please both Romanian Parliament and his relatives from the German Empire.
In 1947, Yugoslav President Josip Broz Tito visited, for the first time, Romania. Its communist regime gave him, as present, a painting from a great Romanian artist Ion Andeescu: 'The Leafless Forest'. In the 60s, a young art critic, Radu Bogdan, decided to elaborate a monograph dedicated to the great painter, including reproduction of the painting given to Tito. After countless problems, he obtained the permission to photograph the painting. The moment they took the painting off the wall, they found - a microphone. Somebody was spying on Tito...
A documentary about the Kosmos collective in Timisoara: a self-organized group of artists, curators, and musicians who revived a former textile factory.
Untamed Romania provides insight into the stunning natural wonders of Romania, with the Carpathian Mountains, the Danube Delta, and Transylvania as its major areas of interest.
They’ve become the human face of inhuman barbarity. Leaders like Hitler, Idi Amin Dada, Stalin, Kim Jong Il, Saddam Hussein, Nicolae Ceausescu, Bokassa, Muammar Kadhafi, Khomeini, Mussolini and Franco governed their countries completely cut off from reality. These paranoid leaders were driven to abuse their power by the pathology of power itself. Dictators are driven by a relentless, thought-out determination to impose themselves as infallible, all-knowing and all-powerful beings. But they are also men ruled by their caprices, uncontrollable impulses, and reckless fits of frenzy, which paradoxically render them as human as anyone else. The abuses they committed were clearly atrocious, yet some of them were as outlandish as the characters portrayed in the film The Dictator. They sunk to depths worthy of Kafka: so incredibly absurd, they are outrageously funny.
A film about the artist Daniel Spoerri. It's actually a film about a thought by Daniel Spoerri: a film almost without Daniel Spoerri, it's actually mostly acted out by a child - to say no less than that everything somehow goes on in life, even if you die in between.
A detailing of the rise to prominence and global sporting superstardom of six supremely talented young Manchester United football players (David Beckham, Nicky Butt, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, Phil and Gary Neville). The film covers the period 1992-1999, culminating in Manchester United's European Cup triumph.
Years spent recording footage of creatures from every corner of the globe is bound to produce a bit of drama. Here's a behind-the-scenes look.
A visual montage portrait of our contemporary world dominated by globalized technology and violence.
This character-driven film considers the evolving sex trafficking landscape as seen by the main players: the exploited, the pimps, the johns that fuel the business, and the cops who fight to stop it.
More than 65 million people around the world have been forced from their homes to escape famine, climate change and war, the greatest displacement since World War II. Filmmaker Ai Weiwei examines the staggering scale of the refugee crisis and its profoundly personal human impact. Over the course of one year in 23 countries, Weiwei follows a chain of urgent human stories that stretch across the globe, including Afghanistan, France, Greece, Germany and Iraq.
A documentary on the expletive's origin, why it offends some people so deeply, and what can be gained from its use.
Al Pacino's deeply-felt rumination on Shakespeare's significance and relevance to the modern world through interviews and an in-depth analysis of "Richard III."
Lyrical and powerfully personal essay film that reflects on the deaths of her husband Lou Reed, her mother, her beloved dog, and such diverse subjects as family memories, surveillance, and Buddhist teachings.
A documentary that explores the downloading revolution; the kids that created it, the bands and the businesses that were affected by it, and its impact on the world at large.
Alexander McQueen's rags-to-riches story is a modern-day fairy tale, laced with the gothic. Mirroring the savage beauty, boldness and vivacity of his design, this documentary is an intimate revelation of McQueen's own world, both tortured and inspired, which celebrates a radical and mesmerizing genius of profound influence.
Through deeply personal interviews with her siblings and an examination of the photographs, letters, and belongings left behind, Mariska assembles a new portrait of her mother Jayne Mansfield, an extraordinary and complex woman.
"One Direction: This Is Us" is a captivating and intimate all-access look at life on the road for the global music phenomenon. Weaved with stunning live concert footage, this inspiring feature film tells the remarkable story of Niall, Zayn, Liam, Harry and Louis' meteoric rise to fame, from their humble hometown beginnings and competing on the X-Factor, to conquering the world and performing at London’s famed O2 Arena. Hear it from the boys themselves and see through their own eyes what it's really like to be One Direction.
A documentary about the life and films of director John Ford.
Ten of Muhammad Ali's former rivals pay tribute to the three-time world heavyweight champion.
A documentary on the modeling industry's 'supply chain' between Siberia, Japan, and the U.S., told through the experiences of the scouts, agencies, and a 13-year-old model.
A documentary focused on plastic pollution in the world's oceans.
When Allied forces liberated the Nazi concentration camps in 1944-45, their terrible discoveries were recorded by army and newsreel cameramen, revealing for the first time the full horror of what had happened. Making use of British, Soviet and American footage, the Ministry of Information’s Sidney Bernstein (later founder of Granada Television) aimed to create a documentary that would provide lasting, undeniable evidence of the Nazis’ unspeakable crimes. He commissioned a wealth of British talent, including editor Stewart McAllister, writer and future cabinet minister Richard Crossman – and, as treatment advisor, his friend Alfred Hitchcock. Yet, despite initial support from the British and US Governments, the film was shelved, and only now, 70 years on, has it been restored and completed by Imperial War Museums under its original title "German Concentration Camps Factual Survey".
A documentary about how a dominant cultural and demographic institution both sustains their traditional activities and adapts to the digital revolution.
A love letter from a young mother to her daughter, the film tells the story of Waad al-Kateab’s life through five years of the uprising in Aleppo, Syria as she falls in love, gets married and gives birth to Sama, all while cataclysmic conflict rises around her. Her camera captures incredible stories of loss, laughter and survival as Waad wrestles with an impossible choice– whether or not to flee the city to protect her daughter’s life, when leaving means abandoning the struggle for freedom for which she has already sacrificed so much.
This revealing documentary honors the legendary Sidney Poitier—iconic actor, filmmaker, and civil rights activist. Featuring interviews with Denzel Washington, Spike Lee, Halle Berry, and more.
