In 1990 I was a student at Philology (later renamed by the post-communist political correctness in Litterature Studies) and joined the first generation of students at the post-revolutionary film school. As son of a theater director who was never a member of the Communist Party (I will not explain here what this meant at that time…) I entered the halls of the former Stalinist gendarmery with the thought (how naïve..) of “avenging” my father.

One of the first classes was a large assembly of the three sections of that time: directing, image , filmology-screenwriting. The DOP Vivi Dragan Vasile, professor for a short but important period of time in school, then told us: for me you are not screenwriters, operators or directors, but you are all one: filmmakers. It was the first and perhaps one of the most important lessons about what cinema means, this hybrid form that is both (as per Chiarini and Barbaro) art and industry. Another professor asked each of us why are we there –  I remember some of the answers, including that of the long, skinny and extremely social Transylvanian Dexter, which sat next to me, who in years to come would set up one of the most important film festivals in Europe, Transylvania Film Festival, or that of the funny and talented colleague froim the Durecting dept. who from the back of the room replied that he made a drunk bet that he will take the next day exam… or that of the son of a major television producer of the time: he had not turned 18 at the day of the exam and one of the recurring jokes of our generation about the one (who would sign among the most important films of the New Wave), it was if he had the legal right to be our colleague … But perhaps the most important thing – detached from the urging of Dragan Vasile, but also from the fact that we were connected to a unique and unrepeatable historical and social context – is that we remained, over time, most of us, friends.

I remember – of course – my answer. It was not a lie, but not the whole truth (I revealed it above, but at that time I was not aware of it), but rational: I thought that if I was a screenwriter I had more chances to make a film than as a director. It was a logical calculation, which could not be missed and if I did a simple math, that’s how it was, I made several films as a screenwriter; And this is how my life, a Litterature graduate who wanted to make cinema, would still depend on texts, not movies. The word is not only the begining, but also the end, it explains everything. And today, instead of a movie, we offer you just words, sorry … Notbecause I wanted to write it, but because I had to.

Tonight, Google sent us a message:

Of course it was bad news. It was the file of today’s premiere, Cornel Gheorghiță’s documentary about the brass bands from Moldova, Fanfaron, Fanfaron. We appealed and mentioned the 16 international nominations of the film, the fact that it is a documentary – therefore raw and realistic – we quoted – in defense of the film – the Jazz musician Mircea Tiberian and professor Speranța Rădulescu, the anthropologist who discovered “Speranța” from Zece Prăjini, but of course no word about Chiarini and Barbaro, because I don’t know what “our team” and its cultural horizon mean… The appeal was dismissed. It was 2.40, this morning.

So, no approval, no film. Just words then.

We had prepared the premiere in advance, very carefully. And that’s because we were expecting a lot of problems. It seemed to me that the greatest one was addressing the subject. We wrote and rewrote the film sheet and the premiere announcement for several times, trying to find several possible phrases, of which the most used were “folk brass bands”, “rural brass bands”, “porch brass bands”. We avoided the adjective “gypsy” as much as possible, only that “Roma brass bands” did not work at all! While the members of the band were, of course, most of them from the Roma community. How could I explain that “gypsy music” is all the time equal to “fiddle music” and that it has nothing pejorative, that pejorative is only the music listened to today, not the forgotten one? What was the point of invoking Budai Deleanu? “What movie did he play in, because he doesn’t appear on IMDB?” Maybe better  Django Reinhardt and “gipsy jazz”? So we had prepared for battle, on the one hand with the followers of political correctness, on the other hand with the haters who would spam us with messages in which they would have accused us of giving films that denigrate Romania. That we have no idea about the realities in the country, etc.

As is the case, for example, with Silișteanu’s film “The Ditch”, which “speaks a language of the Bucharest guys, not ours, real Transylvanians”, as if Silișteanu and Titieni are from south Danube … Or Ralston’s “Drum bun”, which ”it doesn’t happen at us”, as if it was filmed somewhere in Berlin, while in Covasna county the Hungarian language is not spoken. Or that our English translations are bad, although no one seems to have understood that Cinepub is pro bono. That’s all we can do… Has anyone else volunteered?

But we didn’t expect the “violation of the child safety policy“. True, children appear in Gheorghiță’s film, some of them in poses such as that of the image that accompanies this text. Hmmm. That’s why what Hollywood productions are not banned by Google. It’s an invented world, made of plastic, while only the truth disturbs. Let’s lie, then. Pleasant, quiet viewing on the couch with beer, popcorn and chick flick!

The years have passed. Cinepub will soon be seven years old. It’s been dog years, so you can multiply by eight and you’ll find out our real age. We’re getting older. We’re getting tired. We receive letters, notifications, threats, short dirty messages. People prefer to hate than to love. The spelling has also changed. Also from post-communist political correctness. It’s as if writing with “î” from “i” as the undersigned writes Romanian, is an attack on the nation. Who still knows today that of all the members of the Romanian Academy who voted after 89 to return to a XIX century spelling only one notable linguist voted “for”? The natural tendency of a language is towards simplification, not the other way around. But what’s worse is that through this change we had the feeling that we fixed our history.

We didn’t fix anything. Nothing. And unfortunately, we didn’t educate more. Seven years … We will try, as much as we can, for as long as we can, to still show you films. And when we will not be able anymore, t, we’ll let you know – to the few ones that might care. In my collection of hard copies is one of the latest issues (i.e the one that closed the editing of the magazine) of Pro Cinema. The editor-in-chief Cristina Corciovescu and the editorial secretary Mihai Chirilov then decided to protest, to have on the glossy cover only one color. Black. The screening was over. It is one of the important cultural fronde gestures from the 90’s. The winter has never been colder and black. So instead of a film, today, just text. A long one, you might say, just to apologize for not giving us the  today’s premiere.  It’s true. But unfortunately, I couldn’t be shorter, I’m far from a virtuoso. See you next Thursday, hopefully…

Lucian Georgescu & cinepub.ro

PS – Instead of the movie, here are some more words about Fanfaron, Fanfaron,  belonging to a Jazz musician and an anthropologist who both loved it:

The film presents with humor, but without superiority, with empathy, but without pathos, the life of the musicians from the Moldovan brass bands, after the fall of communism. The author elegantly manages to avoid clichés about the exoticism of Roma communities in Eastern Europe. It is certainly one of the most successful documentaries with a social – musical subject made in Romania.

Fanfaron… of Cornel Gheorghiță is both the work of a fulfilled artist and an ethnologist with penetration and finesse. That is why, a few years ago, I presented to the students of my music anthropology course this film, which conquers and instructs you at the same time. It makes you notice the spontaneity and freshness of music and observe its role in the lives of its creators and performers, Roma fiddlers from several Moldovan villages.

Nothing essential is missing from this film: The historical trajectory of peasant brass bands; brass bands relations with the authorities; their relations with the Romanian clients they accompany in two key moments of their existence: the wedding and the funeral; music practice in Roma families and communities; the transformations of music driven by the younger generations; the despair of the brass bands from the years of extreme poverty of Romania, the 90s, when the brass bands were in danger of perishing … The film is a testimony from the time of their struggle for survival.

Two decades have passed since then. The brass bands have not perished, but they have never enjoyed the popular sympathy of yesteryear. Despite the fact that one of them, the band Ciocârlia from the hamlet of Zece Prăjini – styled according to the standards of the western showbiz -, still continues its glorious international career.