Can you help me with my documentary about Romania & Communism?

22 comments

1. you can cirle around any city or village and ask around, look for people age > 50, as eveyone lived communism that are above that age and should be able to tell you what was their experience. But the issue is that most of them won’t know english so i think should have a translator with you. Good luck!

2. There’s an extensive documentary series produced by the Romanian public TV since 1990’s, [“Memorialul Durerii”](http://tvr2.tvr.ro/emisiuni/memorialul-durerii_4182.html) – which has explored in depth many aspects of the communist era, some episodes can be found on Youtube – so it’s a vast subject, and if you want to revisit it today, you might one to focus on a specific angle, niche or event.
   If you’re onto Ukraine-Russia historical events, you might as well explore Romania-Russia (including Moldova) dynamics, including stuff that Romanian Army did to Russia during WW2 when we were Germany allies and stuff that USSR did to Romania in reverse (1944-45) when the Stalinist regime was brought to Romania.

3. Great initiative, hope you will keep us updated. I’m pretty sure you will find a lot of people that will want/be able to talk. In my opinion, you just have to keep 2 things in mind.

   -Most people over 50 don’t speak english but i guess you probably know that and have it covered already.

   -Depending on who or how many people you interview, you will get very very different and contradictory opinions. You will have people that will tell you they had everything they needed and wanted, you will have people that will tell you they were almost dying of hunger. It’s a big combination of where they lived, where they worked, what kind of friends they had, how their relationship with the power was and so on. You also need to factor in nostalgia of their youth years and even loss of memory.

   If you’re interested in doing a more brutal documentary, similar to the Holodomor one, i advice you to check and inquire about the communist prisons from Romania, with the most famous one being the Pitesti Prison.

   The first initiative is a good one too, but it might take some time to filter and actually portrait a real image of the day to day life.

   Anyway, good luck!

4. I see that someone suggested you should go around and ask old people. Dont do that, most of them are not really educated about how communism actually was, most elderly thinks that it was a very good period for romania where “everybody had a house, a job, food on the table” without knowing that it was a shitty house, a shitty job and shitty food (or not really shitty food but very little). But its not their fault after all, most of them who think like this lived in poverty and in the country side, so they werent so connected with the “world” or with the urban environment or with the politics. They would even deny that “Ceașcă” starved us, because they literally didnt know much about what happened.

   Even if i cant help you, i felt the need to write this and wish you luck, maybe you can actually include it in your documentary, that people were so uninformed that even to this day some of them believe communism is good and nothing of those bad things ever happened( kinda like the holocaust deniers)

5. didn’t you already hire a guide for this? or you just got this idea that it would be cool to do this kind of documentary and haven’t thought much about anything else?

6. There are pretty famous people with interesting stories to tell. Did you see “Chuck Norris vs Comunism”? Is Netflix and translated.

   Also a good ideea would be to get in touch with the guys from Europa Liberă (Radio Free Europe).

   45-89 is quite big to cover in one go. Most foreigners don’t realize that communism rule had different, very diverse stages.

   We basically started as Russian occupied territory and got to Europe’s North Korea.

7. If you want some parts about the religious persecutions that happened, I may be able to get you in contact with some people. If you’re traveling to Timișoara (I assume you would be considering the importance it had to the revolution)

8. maybe contact IICCMER https://www.iiccmer.ro/

9. Man, I am over 50, I can speak romanian so “ce vrei să știi?”

10. after you make it, can you please post it in this subreddit, it sounds intteresting 🙂

11. You should try to watch some documentaries and films too. For example,

    https://m.imdb.com/title/tt15433976/
    https://cineuropa.org/en/newsdetail/410569/

12. As for general cities I highly recommend Ploiesti (home to several oil refineries), Galati (home to the biggest steel factory), Constanta (home to the biggest port). I do recommend that you visit those industrial cities since most people aged 50+ from the city probably worked in those industries and they can tell pretty interesting stories about how the industry was changed after 1989, for good or for worse.

13. Pay a visit, it never left, get 1st hand experience

14. If you plan to come to Brasov, have a look at this museum: [https://madc.ro/en/](https://madc.ro/en/)
    Also, feel free contacting me; I was 18 when the iron curtain fell in 1989, so had a taste of both worlds, so to say 😉

15. There is a series made by the National Television called “Adevaruri despre Trecut”. You can find that on YT and it’s discussing different aspects of the communism.

    I don’t know how much of availability she has but, Lavinia Betea, who is also part of the series I mentioned is your to-go person here. She is based in Arad tho.

16. If you want to cover the orphanage issue, you can get in touch with some of the people that went through that. Most likely they will want to share their stories.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Zwn7ns9NWU
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNqYk55Ar-c

17. Hey mate, you may want to talk with this guy: https://www.youtube.com/c/BogdanStoica1

18. My grandma lived under communism, and she could tell you about how life was for religious people under communism since her father was a priest and she faced a lot of prejudice from the state because of that. And my dad used to work in a mine. I’m pretty sure they would be glad to help you.

19. I would recommend also looking into the Pitesti Experiment, also known as the Pitesti Phenomenon. The communists used techniques akin to the ones used by the nazis, essentially turning their victims into tormentors of their fellow inmates. As far as I know, the prison is now a museum. If you contact the administratiin there maybe you can conduct an interview with someone who knows more.

20. I’ll have a word with my father. He was deported, then managed to get a PhD, he lived through the whole period, he is fluent in German as well. Will let you know.

21. Isn’t Germany had communism on the right side of the Berlin wall ?

    I think that communism was quit the same, just more fucked up in Romania, to pay out the debt.

22. It’s absolutely hilarious how you’re told here not to interview random old people that actually lived during communism, cause they might remember it fondly, and you’re actually taking this advice seriously.

    If it doesn’t help the pre-made narrative you’re want to serve with this “documentary”, then that makes their opinion irrelevant?