Among the films that I saw at Taifas Balkan Film Festival is The Summer of \u201991 (Slovenia, 2022,\ndirector: \u017diga Virc, screenplay: Iza Strehar, \u017diga Virc). It is the film I have chosen to speak about in detail,\nbecause it touched me from the first to the last frame.<\/p>\n
Although I guessed what I was about to see, I was surprised from the beginning to the end. A\ndocumentary that deeply impressed me. At first, it made me feel nostalgic. Then it got me into a bad state.\nAnd in the end, I was lost in thought.<\/p>\n
The documentary I am talking about has three parts: 1990, 1991, 1992. The longest, as the title suggest,\nis the second one, which documents, with different films from personal or television archives, the clash\nbetween the Slovenian resistance troops and the Yugoslav army.<\/p>\n
Maybe I should speak a little about the bad state into which this documentary got me. It is difficult to\ncall someone from Moldova to see this film after February 2022. I relived certain painful moments from the\nprevious year. First of all, it made me powerless when I wanted to write. If, initially, I had decided to write\nabout other films as well, when I watched The Summer of \u201891 I knew I wouldn\u2019t be able to write about\nanything else.<\/p>\n
I remembered the month of March 2022, when I had received the C\u0103rture\u0219ti residence to write about a\npoetic project focused on football. The fact that my residence was scheduled for March, one week after the\nstart of Russia\u2019s aggression against Ukraine, paralysed me in the first days spent at C\u00e2mpulung Muscel. I was\nlooking at the dendrological park of Golescu Villa, wondering if there was still a point in writing, if literature\ncould still express something. My favourite places in the Odessa region were bombarded, people were dying,\nthe elders were trying to stop the tanks with their own bodies (the same scene was also filmed in Slovenia, on\nJune 26, 1991).<\/p>\n
Watching The Summer of \u201991, I felt equally powerless. I was teleported to the shock and horror of the\nprevious year. I once again felt that peace was just an empty word in different types of discourse, that war\nwas always present in people\u2019s lives, whether it was fought near our borders or farther away. Perhaps not\neverybody in Romania thought that if Ukraine fell, Moldova would be the next. Well, we had no doubt about\nthat, and our politicians\u2019 actions proved that our fears were justified. Only Moldova closed its airport and air\nborders the same day Ukraine was attacked. Later I learnt that the airport was not only closed by the\nauthorities, but also mined. It was an obvious decision \u2013 if Ukraine were to fall, the airport in Chi\u0219in\u0103u would\nbe blown up. For months we lived like the characters in Phantom Commando, Roland Orcsik\u2019s novel that\nspeaks exactly about the destruction of Yugoslavia. We lived with the fear and trauma of a war that did not\nreach our \u2018village\u2019 (thank God!), but terrorised us emotionally.<\/p>\n
We lived all these things when the 1991 event began. Until then, we hadn\u2019t been able to breathe because\nof so much emotion, realising, perhaps more clearly than ever, how close the Balkans were. The clothes, the\nhaircuts, the smiles of the young people were ours. I relived my teen years overcome with emotion. I heard\nour music, I saw the jeans we wore back then. And that is why I can say that the film was a throwback in\ntime, just like in Embryo Larva Butterfly, by Kyros Papavassiliou, the film shown in the opening of the Taifas\nFestival. I woke up in an alternative time that both excited and annoyed me.<\/p>\n
The wedding filmed in May 1991 seemed to be one from Banat. The translation of the song Say farewell,\nbride. The custom of showing a flower, then another girl, to those who accompany the bridegroom who\ncomes for his bride. The accordion. Everything was there. Just like at home. And if the sound had been turned\noff, I would have bet all my money that it was filmed in Romania, judging by how the bridegroom\u2019s father\n\nwas dressed, his honest tears, the two children who adorned the bride\u2019s house with branches and sang a little\nparty song for the cameraman.<\/p>\n
I hadn\u2019t expected to be so deeply touched by that footage and feel no empathy for the people in the\nmovie, but shock at the passing of time. Everything was so authentic, that I relived all those years again,\nwondering, as in bad dramas, when had those three decades passed? When had my childhood ended? The\nclothes, the behaviour, everything moved me profoundly. I would not have been surprised for a second if I\nhad seen myself on the screen at some point, my brown hair scraped back into a ponytail, jumping and doing\ngymnastics on the ground behind the school, in my first inscribed sweatsuit. Because after the jeans, what we\nmost wanted to have was an inscribed sweatsuit. I had one myself, but not as beautiful as my sister\u2019s, which\nhad Misura inscribed on it.<\/p>\n
As I have already mentioned, the June 1991 part of the film caused me physical harm. I couldn\u2019t get rid\nof the sensation that I had been teleported to February 2022. It took me months to accept what was happening\nin the immediate vicinity of Moldova and Romania. It took me a lot to get used to the muffled explosions that\nI always hear when I visit my mother-in-law, who lives 10-15 kilometres in a straight line from the Odessa\nregion. I went through states I did not want to experience again. Had I anticipated the emotional impact of\nthis film, I would have given up seeing it and I would have lost a lot. Because it is a very good film. Very\nwell produced. Great editing.<\/p>\n
Even in the terrifying or painful moments, I couldn\u2019t help smiling. The Miss contest, the girls in\nswimsuits crammed into a bar, the disgusting hints about the winner, the cake made for the winner, all this\nwere incredibly mixed with the process of determining the quality of some sausages. Equally surprising is the\nassociation of the man in the territorial defence guard who learns how to use a grenade launcher in the\nvicinity of a field where cows graze \u2013 for a moment I was afraid they would blow up a little cow. The harsh\nfights, the men gathered to defend their independence, joking about cooking deer goulash, the paper bag used\nas a chef\u2019s cap, the children playing football while the tanks enter the cities, the woman crying in fear of air\nraids face to face with the young woman who is sheltering in a bunker with her guitar, singing Knockin\u2019 on\nHeaven\u2019s Door, by Guns n\u2019 Roses, to the others, maybe without associating the title of the song with their\nsituation \u2013 all these contrasts humanised the context, but at the same time intensified a terrible state of mind,\none which was caused by the war and which humanity could never escape. I remembered the scenes in\nUkraine with the cats of the Odessa people on the front, the soldiers carrying old men in their arms, the\nimages of the bunkers at Azovstal, Bumbox singing in Odessa: o iu luzy cervona kalina, the fear that\ngradually turns into anger and then loses its lucidity and empathy.<\/p>\n
In the end, this is what a film, be it fiction or documentary, must be about: how the story becomes a\npattern, projecting yourself into your own fears or emotions. A film that excuses and accuses you at the same\ntime, because we were too young and too troubled after our own 1989 to react to what was happening across\nthe border. At the beginning of 1990, our mass graves were barely being opened. There followed more\nmisery, the mineriads, the manipulation, a horrible transition stage, accompanied by corruption and the\nviolation of any social ethics.<\/p>\n
To return to the film now, in the 1992 part, right at the end, the commander of the Territorial Defence\nGuard wonders (another common place in the history of the world!), \u2018What did I fight for?\u2019. We see him a\nyear later, the jobless father of four. And I too wondered if there was any connection with the 1991 moment\nwhen he told the soldiers to have their documents sealed, so they could justify their absence from work.<\/p>\n
The beauty of it lies somewhere else, in the answer that history gave to the commander\u2019s question. What\ndid Slovenia fight for? For freedom, for the life its people have now, for their right to choose their own path,\nfor what Ukraine is fighting now. And I thought that was what I wanted, to see this film after some years, but\n\nabout Ukraine. To know that Ukraine has become a safe and developed country, as Slovenia is today. And I\nthought of many other things (what film will be made about Russia, for example), which I will not detail\nhere, because I don\u2019t want to go into politics, but to enjoy seeing a historical event rendered with an\nundeniable artistic touch.<\/p>\n
\u017diga Vir man manages to bring a thirty-year-old world to the present. Not mimicking documentation, not\nstaging old tragedies, but finding the perfect formula to bring the narrative of the past to the present. Most\nimportantly, \u017diga Virc and his entire team manage to impress and to convince us.<\/p>\n
This film, like so many others shown at the Taifas Balkan Film Festival, where I had the chance of a\nliterary residence given by Taifas and the independent bookshop \u2018Two Owls\u2019, is the perfect proof that such\nfestivals are needed. A moment that makes you think about the importance of festivals, about their impact,\nbecause I don\u2019t know if I had had the chance to see this documentary if it hadn\u2019t been shown at a film\nfestival.<\/p>\n
But it so happened that Taifas was organised, and one Wednesday evening I found myself in the\npresentation room, watching a film that cut through my feelings as the furrow of the plough cuts through our\nland in the middle of the chaotic and so different Balkans. I was once again glad that we too were lucky,\nalthough with the price of many lives, that the historical roller saved us from the dictatorial communism in\nwhich we lived. And here, in this context, I will take a turn as Virc did and end this text with the 1990\npolitical discourse of The Summer of \u201991, which said that at the request of the political agitator, the bad rain\nand the fog went to the communists, and here, in our country (Slovenia in the film, Romania in this text), the\nsun has finally risen!<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Printre filmele pe care le-am v\u0103zut la Taifas, festivalul de film balcanic, se num\u0103r\u0103 \u0219i\u00a0The Summer of \u201991\u00a0(Slovenia, 2022, regie: \u017diga Virc, \u00a0scenariu: Iza Strehar, \u017diga Virc). E filmul despre care am ales s\u0103 vorbesc pe larg, fiindc\u0103 m-a mi\u0219cat de la primul cadru p\u00e2n\u0103 la ultimul. De\u0219i presupuneam cam ce voi vedea acolo, am […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7303,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[47],"class_list":["post-7302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cronica-taifas-2023","tag-moni-stanila"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/taifasfestival.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/taifasfestival.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/taifasfestival.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taifasfestival.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taifasfestival.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7302"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/taifasfestival.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7302\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7500,"href":"https:\/\/taifasfestival.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7302\/revisions\/7500"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taifasfestival.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/taifasfestival.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taifasfestival.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taifasfestival.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}