PRODUCTION > DOCUMENTARIES

 

 


CANAL OF DEATH
>DVD-available


Director:
Nicolae Margineanu
Comentary:
Bogdan Ficeac
Voice-Over:
Damian Oancea
Music: Petru Margineanu

The grandiose communist project of the Danube - Black Sea Canal, also called The Blue Avenue, has a dark history.

In its first phase (1949-1953), after a start marked by great revolutionary enthusiasm, it quickly became a terrible Romanian gulag.

A few octogenarians, former political prisoners, bear testimony to how it is possible to survive on a tightrope, when death is present everywhere.
When one's life no longer has much value in the extermination camps at... the Canal of Death.

 

 

 


GEORGE MANU, the Rector from Aiud Prison
>DVD-available


Director:
Nicolae Margineanu
Comentary:
Bogdan Ficeac
Voice-Over:
Maria Ploae
Music: Petru Margineanu
Drawings: Bela Zoltan

George Manu, a brilliant physicist, was convicted by the communist court in 1948 to hard labor and life in the Aiud prison. Here, he will become a source of knowledge for the other prisoners, whom he helps survive the somber prison life by taking a refuge in the world of knowledge.

He is offered the freedom to work in the Soviet nuclear center in Dubna, in exchange for his giving up on his ideals, but he refuses, the same way as he refuses, on his death bed, to deny his beliefs in exchange for the healing treatment.

He dies in prison and his body is tossed in the mass grave in Ripa Robilor (Slaves Hole), but his image remains alive in the memory of all those who respectfully named him “the professor”. He was a brilliant scientist, and man who dearly loved his country and its people, a formidable spirit…

 

 


ARSENIE BOCA - A MAN OF GOD
>DVD-available


Script:
Bogdan Ficeac & Costin Manoliu
Voice-Over: Maria Ploae
Editing: Nita Chivulescu
Mix: Cornel Ciuleanu
Music: Petru Margineanu, Diacon Mihail Buca, Ierodiacon Daniel Mih
English dubbing: Angela Achim & Alex Wills

"All the diamonds in the world are nothing compared to a moment in God’s light."

Pr Arsenie Boca

This yet-uncanonized saint of Romanian orthodoxy is still revered and loved by the many, much as he himself loved the many during his life, lived in the spirit of humbleness and of God’s saving grace, the life of a man like no other. He was a magnet to believers in all walks of life, but also a target of permanent suspicion by the state authorities.State officials failed to understand the source of his exceptional power of making people listen and follow.

 




UNIVERSITIES AND PRISONS
>DVD-available


Script:
Cristina Anisescu
Director:
Nicolae Margineanu
Editing:
Nita Chivulescu
Sound:
Nicolae Margineanu Jr.
Music: Petru Margineanu
Comentary: Marta Petreu
Voice-Over:
Angela Jane Achim & Mattheu John Kendrick

Nicolae Margineanu's journey started in 1905 in the village Obreja, and ended in 1980 in Cluj. He began his life under austro-Hungarian domination, was a witness to the 1918 Union, lived under three kings: Ferdinand, Carol II and Mihai, and survived all of Romania's dictatorships, from absolute monarchy to the legionnaires rebellion, the antonescian dictatorship and finally Communism. Born under Franz Iosef, he died under Ceausescu.

Nicolae Margineanu studied psychology at the University of Cluj and had post-graduate studies in Leiptzig, Berlin, Hamburg, Paris and London. He was awarded a Rockefeller scholarship for two years in the great american Universities of Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Chicago and Duke.

He returned to Romania and became a professor at the University of Cluj.
He was arrested in 1948 and spent 16 years in the prisons of: Malmaison, Jilava, Pitesti, aiud and Gherla.

One of Romania's greatest psychologists. a sixteen year political prisoner, with prodigious work despite his tragic destiny.

 

 


BRASOV
>DVD-available

Director: Doru Apostolescu
Comentary: Marius Oprea
Camera: Cristian Kostyak
Music:
Petru Margineanu
Editing:
Doru Ruta

Travelers who stop in Brasov, be it only for a day, cannot help feeling their hearts nostalgically touched by the city’s streets and surroundings. This film is an invitation to a trip, unique in its way, taking you within the walls of one of Transylvania’s oldest and best-preserved medieval settlements. Here you will find a world where Saxons, Hungarians, and Romanians have inspirited history and kept it constantly alive. A world of mysteries, too, which has bred several myths, such as that of the enigmatic Count Dracula.
The city is adorned by history-laden monuments and specked with small paradisiacal islets where travelers can spend charming hours. You can accompany us closely as we visit restaurants, hotels in the tradition of medieval inns, theaters, shops, or a big park where you can attend most of Brasov’s fêtes.
Other films that you need to view separately will introduce you to the city’s museums, or the famous Black Church – an exceptionally beautiful religious abode –, and also to the surroundings: Poiana Brasov, the medieval castle of Bran, the old Saxon citadels of Rasnov, Prejmer and Harman. All these documentaries make up an attractive guide that will help you become acquainted with Brasov and its tourist potential.

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BRAN CASTLE >DVD-available

Director:
Nicolae Margineanu
Comentary: Eva Sarbu
Music:
Petru Margineanu

The Castle and stronghold of Bran owes, mainly, its fameto the legendary Count Dracula, whose real existence was associated to the actualPrince Vlad Tepes (i.e., Vlad the Impaler ). In spite of the lack of documentary attestation of his actually dwelling in the Castle, many lovers of legends and "kicks" go there, maybe for experiencing the thrill of a fancied meeting with the terrible hero.This film offers a whole series of testimonies, mostly inaccessible to the common visitor, as well as some data, that try to enlighten the mystery that surrounds Dracula, the ghost-like Count, not intending to shatter the legend, but rather with the wish of extending a bridge between truth and transfiguration, between dream and reality

 

 

 

ROMANIA AND ITS TRADITIONAL MUSIC >DVD-available

Director: Doru Apostolescu
Comentary: Eva Sarbu

Leaves. Fish scales. Reed. Ox horns. Tree branches. Metal. Clay. Wood. You could say that anything is likely to become a musical instrument. So amazingly inventive is the imagination of the peasant eager to communicate by melodious sounds. Folk music is the sonorous image of the place that inspires it. The natural relief contours put their imprint on the contours of man's heart. On 237,384sq km, Romania has mountains and hills, plains crossed by rivers. Folk music, genuine folk music, as much or as little as it was preserved and has endured thanks to the stubborn efforts of the old school, faithfully renders this generous variety of natural as well as spiritual contours.That is why who has not seen Romania can very well, in exchange, "hear her image" recorded on this cassette.

Year 1993. A small filming crew. Thousands of road kilometers. The most isolated habitations in Romania. The place where the folk music tradition is changelessly. Each musical instrument has its own story, which begins at the moment that the instrument is manufactured by the peasants. The sound of the instrument is unique. It's different every time. Either the instrument is used by the peasants that don't know the notes, or by well-known musicians. The older peasants are the ones that treasure the authentic tradition. Most of our folk patrimony risks to pass on together with this peasants. Maybe in few years from now, the achievement of this film wouldn't have been possible.

The film consists of modules, each instrument being treated separately:
- short presentation
- instrument's construction, usually narrated by the manufacturer
- how to sing to an instrument
- short interview with some of the peasants that sings with the instrument.

 

 

 

ARCHITECTURE AND POWER >DVD-available

Director: Nicolae Margineanu
Script: Ioan Augustin
Camera: Gabriel Koshut
Music:
Mircea Octavian

It is a history of Bucharest, as seen in the light of the totalitarian architecture, having as leading idea the reality that the Power always exposes its purposes through architecture. After five decades of communism, the reality on thee Dark Ages is still waiting to be revealed, and architecture is one of the most obvious embodiments of the ideology to whom it was builtÉ It is not a movie about faults or about guilty peoples, but about official edifices of thee communist Romania and their story.

 

THE MAN WITH THOUSAND EYES

Director: Alexandru Solomon
Script: Alexandru Solomon
Editing: Nita Chivulescu
Sound: Dana Bunescu
Camera: Oleg Mutu
Music: Cristian Tarnovetki
Cast: Toni Cristin, Ioana Abur


Grand Prize for documentary film
DAKINO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL, 2001


He was surnamed the dean of the photoreporters, was close to the avangarde movement and had a great contribution to ethnographical photography. His name was Iosif Berman and he lived in Romania from 1890 to 1941. His pictures bear witness to the evolution of photography in those times.He captured the images of almost half a century of European history. A film about the life of a man that had a meaning as long as he could take pictures. A film about the life of pictures, that reflect the destiny of a man.
The feature film "The man with 1000 eyes" directed by Alex Solomon was sent at the "Dokument A-R-T", an International Festival for Documentaries and Videos, in Germany, between 8-12 October 2002.

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