Andra Tarara

A collection of 6 films made during the lockdown period in Romania.

On August 23rd, 1944, the fascist regime was taken down and Romania changed sides in World War II. 75 years later, inside the Jewish Retirement Home, four of the last survivors of racial persecutions reflect upon the personal and political significance of the event. The different attitudes of the protagonists, their passionate debates and irresolvable conflicts reflect the diversity of the Jewish survivors` experiences, the cleavages in the community and the Romanian society as a whole, as well as the importance and controversy of the events in 1944.

The director and her father take a camera in hand and film each other during interviews in which they discuss schizophrenia, their own pasts, and their personal conceptions of happiness. The film is a personal statement of two people affected by or marked by a mental disorder - a father forced to live with it and a daughter who had to grow up with a sick and often absent father. During filming, they try to find understanding for each other while revealing their inner traumas. One of the secondary topics is what it is like to undergo treatment for a mental disorder in Romania, as the father expresses frustration with the way he and his condition are viewed by the local healthcare system.

A small part of Ion Tarara's photographic archive is put in sentimental order by his daughter, on which occasion she rethinks the poetics of archivism.

A collection of 6 films made during the lockdown period in Romania.

On August 23rd, 1944, the fascist regime was taken down and Romania changed sides in World War II. 75 years later, inside the Jewish Retirement Home, four of the last survivors of racial persecutions reflect upon the personal and political significance of the event. The different attitudes of the protagonists, their passionate debates and irresolvable conflicts reflect the diversity of the Jewish survivors` experiences, the cleavages in the community and the Romanian society as a whole, as well as the importance and controversy of the events in 1944.

The director and her father take a camera in hand and film each other during interviews in which they discuss schizophrenia, their own pasts, and their personal conceptions of happiness. The film is a personal statement of two people affected by or marked by a mental disorder - a father forced to live with it and a daughter who had to grow up with a sick and often absent father. During filming, they try to find understanding for each other while revealing their inner traumas. One of the secondary topics is what it is like to undergo treatment for a mental disorder in Romania, as the father expresses frustration with the way he and his condition are viewed by the local healthcare system.

The director and her father take a camera in hand and film each other during interviews in which they discuss schizophrenia, their own pasts, and their personal conceptions of happiness. The film is a personal statement of two people affected by or marked by a mental disorder - a father forced to live with it and a daughter who had to grow up with a sick and often absent father. During filming, they try to find understanding for each other while revealing their inner traumas. One of the secondary topics is what it is like to undergo treatment for a mental disorder in Romania, as the father expresses frustration with the way he and his condition are viewed by the local healthcare system.

A small part of Ion Tarara's photographic archive is put in sentimental order by his daughter, on which occasion she rethinks the poetics of archivism.