I DO NOT CARE IF WE GO DOWN IN HISTORY AS BARBARIANS

“It’s all about authenticity, about liveliness,” says the young director, who is tasked by the city to direct a patriotic open-air theatre production. And she chooses her topic as head-on as she sets out to confront her audience: the 1941 massacre of 25,000 Jews in Odessa by the occupying forces from Romania. In a provocative experiment, the dedicated activist recreates the historic events with amateur actors on a central square in Bucharest, and thereby not only attracts the attention of the public, but also the resentment of the spectators and the state censors. With precise observational skills, refreshing humour and a passionate courage to engage in confrontation – with both the past as well as her characters – the Romanian director Radu Jude’s latest work follows the project’s film shoot as well as the conversations and conflicts that result from it. After his previous trilogy of buried (hi)stories in Aferim!, Scarred Hearts and the documentary The Dead Nation, Jude this time succeeds in combining facts and fiction into an elegantly playful yet belligerent drama, with both plenty of rage and compassion.