About an Idea

The current edition of DocumFest aims to place the Romanian revolution inside a larger European context. Much has been said and written in these last twenty years about the events from 1989. Nevertheless, so much still remains unknown and controversial. In order to understand what happened in Romania, it is important to also know the changes that occurred in other Eastern European countries. The idea behind this edition’s theme was to show how countries such as Poland, former Czechoslovakia, Hungary and others in the region look retrospectively at those exceptional moments when their seemingly untouchable totalitarian regimes were eventually brought to an end.

Beyond the great history of countries and leaders lies the “small” history of common people. Individual destinies often bring out a new dimension, one that is essential for understanding the meaning of nationally or internationally important events. A dimension which often finds its depiction in documentary films. The audience of DocumFest will not only find here some essential historical information, but also something else, something harder to describe: the air and the atmosphere of those moments when we didn’t know where history was taking us, when we rejoiced and hoped for a better life.

Lucian Ionică