Astra Film

Gold Seekers

Director: Cristian Niţulescu
Country: Romania
Year: 2005
Length: 25

Gold has always fascinated people’s minds. The film explores the essential role it has played in the history of a community living in a gold mining area in Transylvania.
While explaining the technical differences between gold mining and gold washing, the interviews reveal old stories of legendary mine shafts where you can still find massive gold veins, and of miners who dug out dozens of kilograms of pure gold in only one night. The characters also talk about how the lucky miners used to spend their fortunes, and about the early years of communism, when the regime imposed state control on all gold mining activities. „Gold has brought us good luck, but it has also been a curse” – says one of the characters. Today, traditional mining and gold washing techniques face extinction, but the fascination for gold remains untouched.

Faces

Director: Adrian Voicu
Country: Romania
Year: 2006
Length: 52

If you have been born and you live in the Danube Delta, and you own a fisherman’s boat, you don’t have to worry too much about today and about tomorrow. At least, that’s what locals used to think. Owning a boat means that you can fish and feed your family, and it also means communication. Surrounded by waters, the only way people can get from one place to another is by boat. The film tells the story of the transition period in the Danube Delta, an isolated area at the Eastern Romanian border, governed by other rules than the rest of the country. According to the locals, they are the first Romanians to see the sun rise and the last to see justice done. In the recent years, some nouveaux riches have seized the opportunities offered by the Danube Delta and started fishing or tourism businesses there, most of the times at the disadvantage of the locals. The film explores the ways they find to cope with this new situation.

Who Wants To Publish My Diary?

Director: Dite Dinesz
Country: Romania
Year: 2005
Length: 17

She was abandoned in an orphanage shortly after having been born; she was sexually abused, diagnosed with a mental handicap, and lived in a violent environment; she was subjected to physical and emotional pain. The film makes the portrait of this woman quoting from her own diary. Now, at 38, she can say that she has made it. She is a university graduate and has found a job as a teacher. But all the pain she has suffered has remained in her memory and on the pages of seventeen notebooks.

A Few Things About Queen Marie

Director: Sorin Ilieşiu
Country: Romania
Year: 2006
Length: 23

“I was barely seventeen when I came to you. I was young and ignorant, but very proud of my native country, and even  now, I am proud to have been born an Englishwoman... but I bless you, dear Romania, country of my joy and my grief, the beautiful country which has lived in my heart.” Queen Marie of Romania

The film is conceived as a personal account. Fragments of the Queen’s biography are interpreted by the acclaimed actress Maia Morgenstern, whose profile is projected on a background of archive footage and photographs.

Red Poppies

Director: Enikö Magyari -Vincze
Country: Romania
Year: 2006
Length: 55

The film was made in the framework of an anthropological research conducted within a (Boyash) Roma community from the city of Orăştie, Hunedoara County. It addresses issues related to women’s status, marriage, birth, abortion, contraceptives, domestic violence and prostitution through women’s narratives. The viewer can understand these phenomena through the experience of the Romani women within their own community, and from the moments when thez have to face off instances of institutional rasism. The viewer will also observe the gap (and the lack of communication) between their perspectives and the point of views of those whom they confront with in the different situations of everyday life. The film identifies the strategies these women use against discrimintation and how they construct their own world as a reaction to social exclusion and marginalization.

Jiu River Valley People

Director: Gheorghe Sfaiter
Country: Romania
Year: 2005
Length: 60

Jiu River valley is the most important mining area in Romania. Over the years, it has been the scene for many conflicts. In 1977, the miners from Jiu River valley had the courage to oppose the Ceausescu regime. Later, in the early 90’s they were used by the politicians in power in their attempt to reduce to silence the democratic opposition in the country. Their violent interventions in Bucharest have entered recent history under the name of mineriads. After these turbulent episodes, the Jiu River valley miners find it difficult to escape the label of violent people. Using the observational style, the film tells their real life story.

Rodica Is A Good Boy

Director: Marian Ilea, Gheorghe Dinu
Country: Romania
Year: 2005
Length: 53

Since his early childhood, Vasile Ghiman from a mountain village in Maramureş considered himself to be rather a girl than a boy. He called himself “Rodica” and wore women’s clothes. Vasile/Rodica grew up with this transsexual dilemma. At 30, he is still confused about his place in the community, although the people in the village have accepted him as he is, proving that rural communities in Romania may be more open-minded than most people might think. The film captures Rodica’s confessions on camera, sharing with the viewer his anxieties and his attempts to come to terms with himself.

Rumenye, Rumenye

Director: Radu Gabrea(see interview )
Country: Romania
Year: 2006
Length: 50

Kletzmer music originates in Central and Eastern Europe and has become a symbol of Jewish culture. Kletzmer used to be a functional music, always played at weddings and other Jewish ceremonies. Today, this music links European and Jewish culture and stands for the post-Holocaust revival of the latter. Kleztmer music is like a bridge connecting the sufferings of the past with the hope for concilliation and understanding in the future. American ethnologist Yale Storm is world famous for his research of Kletzmer music. He gives an account on the revival of Kletzmer from a double perspective: as a historian and as a musician. No other country had a stronger impact on Kletzmer music than Romania. “Doina – Jewish Blues” celebrates the connection between Jewish and Romanian music. The film features Elisabeth Schwartz, the famous Ydish singer whose ascendants were born in Romania.