Andrei Pandele’s Exposition “Banned photos and personal images” is open in December 20th - February 3rd , at Galeria etaj 3/4, MNAC Bd. Nicolae Bălcescu, nr.2 (National Theatre), Wednesday to Sunday, between 10:00 and 18:00.
Part of these photos have been projected in France, with the title: “Bucarest, Ma Ville”. You can see them here.
The images are from 70s, 80s and early 90s - a real travel in time. The darkest time.

Cristian Mungiu’s ‘4,3,2′ is nominated for the Golden Globe, which will be awarded on January 13th, 2008. This increases the chances for an Oscar nomination.

After winning the Golden Palm, Hollywood World Award, Bronze Horse, European Film Award etc. the Cristian Mungiu’s film ‘4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days’ is now facing the opportunity to run for an Oscar … fingers crossed! The Romanian director is competing with very big names like: Nikita Mihalkov, Andrzej Wajda, Manoel de Oliveira and Giuseppe Tornatore.
The final five nominees for the Oscar (best foreign film) will be announced on January 22nd, 2008.

One of my favourite masterpieces, “The Thinker”, together with “Woman sitting” (also known as “The Thinker and his companion”) will start an European tour, first in Switzerland, then in Belgium and other European countries, in an exhibition including 1,200 works from 39 museums, dedicated to the neolithic period. But, before that, they can be admired, for three months, at the National Museum of History, in Bucharest, during a preview - “The birth of a great exhibition: “A l’aube d’ Europe. Les grandes cultures neolithiques de Roumanie”

The two pottery figurines belong to Hamangia Culture from middle neolithics, second half of the 6th millenium BC.

Faith Akin’s newest film, ‘The Edge of Heaven’, has just won the European Parliament’s first Lux Prize (the trophy was inspired by Tower of Babel).
In the film, talking about her troubles in Turkey, Susanne, a film character played by Hanna Schygulla, keeps repeating the same phrase: “Maybe things will be better when Turkey joins the European Union …”, but when the frustration is reaching its pick, everything is reduced to: ‘F*** the European Union!‘
Sounds familiar?
Here is an interview that director Faith Akin gave for Cineuropa.

Tomorrow starts the 9th International Festival of Documentary Film and Visual Anthropology, ASTRA FILM SIBIU 2007.

One of the special programs is “View on Eastern Europe” - a selection of documentaries produced by Arte and BBC/Ch4 in the last 15 years about Eastern Europe.
There will be live transmissions on Arte TV and daily news on TV5, Duna TV.

Promo

Not only in Romania are the readers comparing the ‘traditional’ media with the blogosphere. In his interview for EurActiv, Joël de Rosnay, author of “The Pronetarian Revolution”, is talking about the road “from mass media to media of the masses”:

Another reason behind the mass media crisis is of course the increasing success of Internet and especially the creation of information by internet-users themselves. The blog phenomenon, interactive websites, P2P and personal diaries have contributed to flooding the Net with quality information that is extremely diverse but often original, giving a new angle to the news.

Media of the masses carry more nuances than classical media. Citizens recognise themselves in the multitude of diverse expressions, relayed by blogs inter-connected by RSS, a surprising amplification system. The “buzz” between internet-users can make opinions move, much more than traditional political campaigns using the big classical media.

We can easily recognize the same discussions that took place these days between some Romanian bloggers and the journalists.

I found rather difficult to structure the idea of this post. Simply because it has in background four recent different facts (and many, so many others not so recent), connected mostly by some aspects of the Dark Age of Communism.

1. A Romanian Eurosceptic site (yes, I usually try to stay informed, reading the both sides of a story), AlterMedia (well, not quite ‘Romanian’, since it is part of an international network, but on this particular site most of the authors are Romanian) is talking about the youth of Mr. Barosso, President of the European Commission, presenting a video, with an young and ‘lefty’ Barosso, member of a Marxist Leninist organization. They are quoting the Portuguese MEP Miguel Portas (nota bene - the link is from Mr. Portas’ website, but not to the related story).
Well, I have no reasons not to believe that Mr. Barosso was inclined to adhere to a communist movement, and I also believe that it was mainly a reaction to the autocratic regime that ruled Portugal in those times. They also quote Mr. Portas (again, the link does not confirm this) that the video was posted several times on You Tube but it ‘mysteriously’ disappeared every time. Which made me smile, because …
2. .. I found the same little movie .. guess where! On Mr. Barosso’ website. Smart move, Mr. President! Well, this is why I usually double check what I find on the internet.
3. In the context of Burma events, the European Commission VP, Margot Wallström, was talking about the Palme d’Or-winning Romanian movie, “4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days”, saying that “it was a totally depressing ( but true !) film, including how dark the streets were…”. A comment to this, from a Romanian reader, Marcela, was:
“Dear Margot,
I saw the film “4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days” last week, too. It “rebuilds” only one moment of thousand difficulties, problems of Romanian dictatorial regime where I survived. My thoughts are now for a better life of Burma’s people, too.”
4. Few days ago, I was watching a talk show (”Altfel” Realitatea TV) with ‘three wise (Romanian) men” - Gabriel Liiceanu, Andrei Plesu and Dan C. Mihaescu. They were talking, among other things, about the people (many very young) that were praising the communist ideology, considering Guevara is a hero, arguing that the ideas behind communism are “ok”, but they were not applied accordingly. (Yeah, right! Wake up! The communism did not fail only in Romania, it failed in every country it was “applied”, wether it was Russia and all “Soviet” countries, China, North Korea, former Yugoslavia, half of Germany, Poland or Cuba). Smiling, the three gentlemen were saying that this new trend is mostly generated by people that have no idea what kind of regime this was (because they are too young to know or remember, or they did never live in a communist country), and the cure for this ‘disease’ would be to send them for one year to live in North Korea.

Well, in relation with these facts, I was thinking yesterday: If there are people who pay to spend few weeks in a ‘prison environment’, or as I was reading recently in press - to try for few hours the life a beggar, why not make them pay if they want to taste the life in a communist country?
I wouldn’t go so far and send them in North Korea, where they will probably (literally) die from starvation or tortured in the communist prisons.
But in Romania, where they are already exploiting the Dracula image, I can bet that in one or two years tops, we will have a new offer for tourists: a duplicate of the life in communism. One of a kind experience: darkness, cold, no TV, no food, no the elementary hygienic items or medicine, no information, no freedom of speech, no access to culture, forced to sing for the Big Brother, afraid to speak even in front of the relatives, living just a big and ugly lie. God help us to remain just a holiday experience (kind of twisted, I think), and never again a sad and terrifying reality.

On Cafebabel there is a short interview by Natalia Sosin (Poland) taken to the Romanian writer Mircea Cartarescu.

Besides the discussion regarding his biography and books, Cartarescu also expresses his opinion related to European Union:

‘the French can afford to be eurosceptic, but we cannot. We face the following choice: to be in Europe or to be nobody. This is why I think that Europe has the potential to become a supernation. We cannot say that we are Romanians with pride if we refuse to say that we are Europeans at the same time. Joining the EU means an increase in self-respect. I really wanted it, and was really happy when it came true.’

I agree with the fact that we should proudly call ourselves ‘Europeans’ before asking others to do so, but I have some doubts when he says that the Europe has the potential to become a supernation, not because I’m an Eurosceptic (I’m not) but I think that cultural integration did not keep the same pace with the economic or political one.

I don’t see the French, British, German, Polish…even Romanian people ready to say that we are one (super)nation. Not now and not soon. On contrary, if EU Institutions will try to speed up things (see Constitution Treaty) they will receive the opposite reaction. Besides, nations already in place are discussing disintegration (Belgium and others).

As some of you probably already know, Sibiu (or Hermannstadt) is this year, together with Luxembourg, the European capital of culture.
It was an excellent choice, not only because Sibiu is one of the most beautiful cities in Romania and in Europe but mostly because Herr Klaus Werner Johannis is definitely the only mayor in Romania who could fulfill such a task. Some of us still hope that someday he will be the mayor of Bucharest, or ‘at least’ the next Romanian president.