Gabriel Achim Director of "Adalbert’s Dream"

Adalbert’s Dream is a black comedy based on a real story that happened in a Romanian communist factory, shot using old school VHS technology. It’s the 8th of May 1986, the anniversary day for the Romanian Communist Party and the day after when the football team Steaua Bucharest has won the Champions League (for the first and last time in the Romanian football history) which for Romanians seems more important than the national holiday. We follow the story about Iulica, a makes who creates a film for the party`s anniversary and calls it Adalbert’s Dream, thinking it would sound more artistic.

What was the reaction of Romanian people when they saw the film? We already had 3 screenings in 3 different festivals in Romania. So, it was overwhelmingly well received in front of different audiences. Unfortunately, Romanian new movies are not really loved in their domestic country. People do not want to see real life on the screen, they want to be entertained, to forget about the reality, which in my opinion is really stupid. However, the festival audience received the film quite warmly, and the viewers told me that they need this kind of film.

What is the most important thing for you in this movie? To be sincere and personal. It does not matter if the movie is not going to be loved. I am not talking about that I want to make people say: “Oh, look – this guy is great.” If you are sincere, there is a possibility that your film will function for a longer time.

Why did you choose to make the film with VHS technology? I am not that interested in things like structuring the story, camera movement and other things related on the structure of the idea of the film. I wanted to go deeper and to seize the material opportunities supporting the idea of the film. Actually, when I pick up VHS, I was fighting against the whole world, because every single producer, every filmmaker told me not to shoot on VHS, because it will make it look poorer. I made a lot of tests on VHS before shooting to know how different supports of VHS are going to react in cinema on the big screen. Also VHS itself has an effective memory - a lot of emotions and feelings, because it is quite related to the past. On the spot you remember the good times of 80s. VHS is a stereotype which looks like coming from the past. At first the Romanian filmmakers did not understand why I wanted to use it, but later all the Romanian DOPs wanted to see the film. There was no doubt for anyone that I did the right choice.

So, you visual choice makes you different from the other Romanian New Wave directors. I did not wanted to be different of them. My film is really personal and sincere.

There is another point that makes Adalbert’s Dream different from other contemporary Romanian films. Usually, they talk about nowadays, and your film talks about the past. Why is the past still important? I will tell you a story. There is a retired engineer, a neighbour of my parents in the countryside and every time I meet him, he starts to cry: “What a bad times are we living…” and so on. Once I got fed up of his complaints and asked him why it was so good during the Ceaușescu times? Is it because everybody had a job and one month holiday at the seaside? With a tear in his eye and a trembling voice he said: “Because we were young.” This is the question why we sentimentally deal with those times. I think that there is nothing new under the sun. Usually, only the shape is different, but sense is the same for centuries. There are 7 big themes in all the arts including cinema. So, it does not matter if Romanian films are discussing the past, presence and future - the feelings are quite the same. We all live the same stories. For example, falling in love is always new for the lovers. They do not realize that somebody has fallen in love before them and that their story is not so original. Romanian directors succeeded in cinema industry abroad, because their stories are universal.

But is it like if you are doing the movie about nowadays, it can be universal and if you are talking about communist times, the rest of the Europe may not understand you? For example, most of my favourite movies are the old ones: they deal with the past and they do not have contemporary stories. I think the context, or the time when the plot takes place really does not matter to understand the story. Actually, I think, we did not exhaust the topic of communist past yet. And I think that not everybody understands communism in the West. In some countries people almost don’t know anything about communism. There are some Western countries where communism is still considered as a very good idea. Ok, capitalism is wrong, but communism is definitely not an alternative. We experienced communism for almost 50 years, and I can tell that for sure it is one of the worst experiences of whole humanity.

By Jorė Janavičiūtė