The Filmmaker’s Diary is our newest feature, signed by Romanian filmmakers – directors, actors, scriptwriters, editors, producers. Like a diary where they share  their thoughts, feelings, state of being or favourite things – either if it’s a film or a childhood story, this is an article about people, no matter the circumstances they find theirselves in.

The Filmmaker’s Diary is a no frequency feature and the articles will be published as episodes. The one to inaugurate it is director & screenwriter Marius Olteanu, alumni of National Film and Television School and of UNATC. He has directed the feature film Monsters. (Berlinale Forum 2019, Grand Prix Sofia 2019) and a few short films (No Man’s Land, Why don’t you dance?)

I’ve been sleeping in the same room for the last five years and I’ve never felt the need to move the bed in a different position. Until today, when I decided to place it next to the wall with the best view of the windows. If I wake up tomorrow and everything ends up to be a bad, neverending dream, it was worth it; and if not, at least I can see beyond my room’s walls and maybe I will feel less quarantined. And, well, if none of the above is possible, maybe this change brings a bit more sense to it all, or it helps me look for one somewhere else.

I promised myself at the end of last year – a year filled with more events and trips than all the previous 39 ones –, that I will take a break. One in which I would just sit with myself and think through all the things I want to get done next. I wasn’t expecting everyone to take a break at the same time with me and in such an absolute way. All of a sudden, my bourgeois-artsy preference, probably not a very sustainable one, became an obligation – one that made me wonder, after a few weeks, if my initial intention wasn’t the wrong one.

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Today I revisited Cabaret (the movie) after a long time – and just after finishing the limited series Fosse/Verdon, which, by the way, took an effort to watch because of its format, and also because of the two biographies which underlined the soap-opera-ish approach of the series (the director – a drug-addict genius / his muse, a loving wife, a friend in need). 

I watched Cabaret with a sort of fear of the changes within me and of how they would show in the film – it’s the change that baulks me to revisit the movies I truly enjoyed. And yes, one can notice the 70’s filmmaking style, the abrupt and explicit editing, the extreme close-ups, the not-so-subtle type of acting, and the thick, honey-like aspect of the image. And still, someone didn’t lose anything with time – Sally Bowles, played by Liza Minnelli.  Maybe the state of petty human-being, caught between times, is something easily relatable in 2020? The despair you could feel in Sally’s voice, her gestures, her acting, costumes and exaggerations are real and comprehensive, and more than anything else, they are real life. Liza Minelli and the music of Cabaret. It is highly probable that I will listen to Mein Herr on repeat for the next few days. 

I find it gets tougher to provoke empathy through a movie, especially since the emotional abuse and extreme situations we’ve been trained to face have led us to watch films and follow news with a sort of distance. Maybe this is exactly what works so well with Minnelli’s character – she doesn’t take herself too seriously. She lives her rage and depression intensely and fast, without embarrassment. Without giving you the sensation that she needs you to empathize, that she needs you in order to exist.  Maybe it wasn’t fortuitous that I rewatched a movie about a world that’s ending and another one that’s being born?

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I couldn’t make myself these days to watch some footage shot with a HI-8 camera – some of it being almost 25 years old, some of it never seen from the moment I recorded them. The tape left in the camera has written on it We love life – it was a documentary exercise named after a Pulp album, which is also around 20 years old. I think the reason I avoid it is that I have no idea what’s left of the people caught on this film, neither what’s still relevant, or if I will feel embarrassment, mercy, or nostalgia – the kind of feelings which we are all avoiding in these times. 

I have heard something, as if a bird would have crashed into the window. I felt too lazy to open the window, go outside, see what happened. These days the air has turned into some sort of jelly in which I hardly move and think, and the main verb I use is “to put off”. 

A few hours later, when I went down to take the trash out, I found a dead bird wiped by dogs, next to the bin. “Presumably, it broke its neck when it crashed into the window, either way I could have not saved it, even if I would have gone outside before the dogs came.” So I started humming Tomorrow Belongs to Me and wondering if I’ll get out of this quarantine more indifferent than I have entered. 

Now I lie down, listening to the dogs’ howling, while beyond the window which I now can see from my bed, there is a sign slowly spinning around the STS tower, saying “Please remain at home”. That bird left no trace when it crashed.

Marius Olteanu

Născut în 1979, în București. Este regizor și scenarist, absolvent al National Film and Television School și UNATC.
A realizat lungmetrajul Monștri. (Berlinale Forum 2019, Grand Prix Sofia 2019) și mai multe scurtmetraje (Scor Alb, No Man’s Land, Why don’t you dance?)
Marius Olteanu este și fotograf, facându-și debutul publicistic și expozițional cu albumul “Timoc, Lumea de dincolo”.