Videos with subversive messages attract attention in the universities of Cluj-Napoca. Inspired by letters sent clandestinely to Free Europe during the dictatorship, three video works evoke the revolt of those who once only dreamed of freedom: collectives of workers, a phlegmatic teenager, an unconscious young man, angry mothers or intellectuals who fled to the West. Cut from letters, their voices recompose the discourse of everyday resistance in a series of short films about revolt and disobedience, about the stubbornness to demand, even when it is dangerous to do so. The works, which combine written testimonies with images from the 80s, were made by the French-American filmmaker Jean Christophe Couet, the director Ioana Păun and the Numa Film production company. The films summarize thousands of stories about women, teenagers or security guards, about all kinds of people who chose to speak openly in Romania in the 80s, and their message is brought to the attention of today’s students and teachers. The initiative, launched in duplex at the Faculty of Theater and Film and the Faculty of Political Sciences, will continue, itinerantly, in other Cluj university centers.
The authors track irreverent or dangerous actions, examining the attitudes and pulses that make people write to a token radio station. “Recontextualizing the letters was an obligatory gesture. There are huge digital archives with observational documentaries, with footage from ordinary places, in everyday actions. What attracted me – both to the text and the image – is the beauty of people when you do something with confidence in their right, whether it’s just walking down the street or tying to the fences of the university”, says director Ioana Păun. The movies talk about meeting chances when young people have the advantage of a lack of blasé. It is a moment that you can reap or choose to ignore; this is a universal condition. The tension of this moment was all the more significant in a closed world, smoldering in a wider one. In the West, the euphoria of a decade of change was fully experienced. Shaped by technological breakthroughs, political scandals and economic tensions, the ’80s paved the way for today’s life.
Filmmakers Patricia Sas, Andrei Siran, Horațiu Curuțiu, Ion Indolean, Daria Gîzdavu, as well as actresses Ioana Flora and Bianca Temneanu also contributed to the creation of the 80 Subversive video clips.
