In Romanian with English subtitles, 2016

by Olga Stefan

Editing: Gabi Basalici

Image: Miklos Klaus Rosza

Skype recordings and image inside the apartment: Olga Stefan

Fragments of a Life is a video combining intimate family conversations between Olga Stefan and her grandmother, Sorana Ursu (now 91), with footage, photographs, and other images from the past and present, creating an assemblage of memories and impressions that both support and reject historical events. Through the personal account of Sorana Ursu, whose father was killed during the 1941 Iasi pogrom, along with those of other members of the family now in Israel and the United States, biographical fragments are pieced together in a desperate attempt to establish a coherent narrative of life, while acknowledging the incomplete image of reality they present, the malleability of memory, and the tragedy of forgetting that is an inherent part of survival. The story follows Sorana Ursu’s life in the wartime years, her evolution into a communist and ultimately her disillusionment, while exploring issues of identity, migration, displacement, and belonging.

In Romanian with English subtitles, 2017

by Olga Stefan

in collaboration with Virsta 4

Edited by Ileana Szasz

The film presents the personal stories of the residents of the Moses Rosen Retirement Home in Bucharest, taking us through the Jewish quarter, in the areas where scenes of antisemitic violence took place during the 1941 pogrom, at the houses of the film’s subjects, and in front of the buildings that played an important role in the life of the Jewish community and Jewish identity before, during and after the war. 

In French and English with English subtitles, 2016

by Olga Stefan

The Wild Child of Jassy is the first recording of the artist thoroughly detailing his experiences during World War II in Iasi, Romania, specifically recounting his 2010 trip to his natal country searching for traces of his father, and his disappointment at the land he found. Daniel also discusses existential topics, like life and death, belonging, and homelessness, and the role art plays in the face of meaninglessness.

Prigoana din Basarabia - documentar despre holocaustul romilor

by Sergiu Ene (Moldova, 2012), 56min, documentar, în limba română, în colaborare cu Centrul Național al Romilor din Moldova

A documentary film depicting the fate of the Roma in Bessarabia during the Holocaust. Both Jews and Roma were exiled to camps and ghettos in Transnistria in the summer of 1942. Of the three thousand Roma, only half returned home. The film shows footage from those deportation sites, which are now under Ukrainian administration. The filmmakers followed in the footsteps of the deportees to the village of Ivanovka in Odessa region, where they interviewed 84-year-old Nadejda Mahneak. Other Roma oral testimonies were found in the towns of Soroca, Hincesti, Straseni, etc.