Director

Radu Ciorniciuc

Romania, Germany, Finland | 2020 | 86 min | Romanian

• Producer Monica Lazurean-Gorgan, Hanka Kasteliková, Alina David, Ümit Uludag, Ari Matikainen
• Production Company HBO Europe, HBO Romania, Yle Finland, Manifest Film
• Screenplay Lina Vdovii, Radu Ciorniciuc
• Cinematography Mircea Topoleanu, Radu Ciorniciuc
• Editing Andrei Gorgan
• Sound Lukáš Moudrý, Tom Weber
• Cast
• Contacts

  
  

About the Film

On the margins of society, and for two decades, the Enache family—consisting of 9 children and their parents—have lived in a hut near an abandoned water reservoir in the Bucharest Delta. It is one of the largest natural reserves in the world, located in the middle of a heavily populated area. After the government decides to reclaim the reserve, the family faces displacement from their home. Forced to move and reside in the city, they have to deal with a way of life of which they know nothing. From the children having to go to school instead of swimming in lakes, to giving up fishing and using mobile phones, their entire lifestyle is altered.

Using a simple and easy narrative, the director raises many questions about social identity, socialization, and the ability to become familiar with a new and complex lifestyle. Perhaps the film puts us face to face with the concept of lost paradise. Is it better for that family to return to the primitive life they are accustomed to, or to engage in a luxurious civil life, even if it is not without conflicts and complications? The narrative of the film goes beyond the usual story of a journey to the vast city with its complexities, to reach a more philosophical conception of the original human identity and the ability to reconfigure that identity, altering it to identify with new surroundings—possibly along the lines of the famous story by Kaspar Hauser.

In his first feature film, director Radu Ciorniciuc brings this painful human issue to life in a visually frugal, hyper-realistic manner, and with a reduced visual language that earned him the World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Cinematography at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival.

Amir Ramses