The Striking Isidore Isou
He was a painter, poet, novelist, playwright, essayist, theorist, musician, erotologist, economist, dancer, filmmaker – and much more. He was also, in equal measure, a troll ‘avant la lettre’, a terrorist and manipulator of received ideas, a pompous speculator, and an uncompromising genius. In January 2025, one hundred years passed since the birth, in Botoșani, of avant-garde artist Isidore Isou (1925–2007), an event of major cultural importance that, predictably, went largely unnoticed in Romania. Almost miraculously, a one-day symposium (October 17), organised by professors Christian Ferencz-Flatz and Andrei Rus at UNATC and capped off by the screening of his only feature film at Cinema Elvire Popesco, came to partially repair this inexcusable oversight.
Film critic and journalist; writes regularly for Dilema Veche and Scena9. Doing a MA film theory programme in Paris.
