Tag: story

  • Stories on a biscuit

    Stories on a biscuit

    The habit of gifting away and receiving
    presents dates from time immemorial. Offering a present can be an utterly
    rewarding habit, in that it enables you to see, in the eyes of the recipient, the
    joy of having received that little something they most wanted for themselves. That
    little something could be a little surprise as well. However, there are people
    who loathe looking for a present…they fear they might pick up something
    unsuitable. However, in either case, there is a growing number of options when
    it comes to picking up inspired, ready-made and minutely-crafted presents. And,
    when you yourself choose to manufacture products that can be offered as a present,
    you’re sure to become a goblin of joy. It was the very intention that spurred a
    young creator based in Bucharest, Raluca Matei, to prepare a couple of painted biscuits
    for her daughter to take to the nursery school as March amulets.


    The initiative was regaled with a huge welcome. Which prompted our
    guest today to create stories on a biscuit, a brand she told us more about.


    Raluca Matei:


    It’s about ginger bread, actually. The story on
    biscuits did kick off, but little by little we remained on ginger bread because
    we eventually created a very good recipe. It is soft and fluffy and strongly flavoured.
    Clients adored it and that is why
    we focused on ginger bread. We started off from March amulets for my girl in
    the nursery school. And we still had a demand for that, afterwards. And we prepared
    all sorts of presents for celebrations, flower bunches, presents for
    physicians, for teachers, for children, for the grownup, for grandparents, for
    everybody.


    And, one fine produce after the next, Raluca
    and her stories on a biscuit are now four years old, and brimming with optimism
    for the future. Each and every life is a story in own right and each celebration
    or anniversary can tell part of that story, so we felt entitled to ask Raluca Matei
    what the stories were, that she told on a biscuit.


    Everyone have
    their own story. People offer presents to their nearest and dearest, to friends,
    so we stick only to that particular person’s hobbies and pleasures. They provide
    several elements, several ideas we then combine, and a story comes out of that
    in the long run, as things are connected and what comes out speaks about the recipient
    of that present, spot on.


    Raluca Matei told us how far the story of the stories on biscuits
    has got.


    We succeeded to open a laboratory, there’s five of
    us, five girls we’re at it, we’re a team we hope to carry forward and enlarge
    as much as possible. We expanded countrywide, we even reached as far as Europe.
    We sent very many presents. Presents, all made of ginger bread: flowers, anniversary
    boxes, puzzles, weddings, baptizing, first-anniversary testimonials, we even replaced
    the flatbread that is traditionally torn above the new-born’s head on the first-lock
    haircut ceremony, we replaced it with gingerbread which is decorated with the theme
    of the event. Everything is handmade, it is painted. So there is nothing serial
    about its manufacturing. Everything is handmade, according to the client’s
    request, with food colouring, which goes for absolutely every topic. People even
    had us mix all sorts of themes, from kitchen, with coffee, with passion, absolutely
    everything, characters in cartoons, in movies, landscapes, anything.


    Little hearts decorated with locks, with keys, flowers, petals, flowers,
    leaves, ginger bread in the shape of little stones painted in the fission of a
    March amulet, or decorated on the Halloween, with orange pumpkins and magician’s
    hats, basket made of coloured ginger bread flowers, or it could be just flowers
    that seem real, wrapped in a savoury bunch, all that can be found in the offer of
    the workshop.


    The themed ginger bread presents are in high demand, so orders need
    to be placed well in advance, so that prospective recipients can have the
    guarantee orders are being delivered right on the set date.

    Raluca Matei:

    Our clients already know they need to place their
    orders two or three months in advance, if they want to book a place. The very
    large, complex bunches, with lots of flowers, with messages, they usually say I
    Love You or Happy Anniversary or well-wishing words, for children we have cartoon
    characters, for the grown-ups we have all sorts of items depicting the hobby of
    celebrating and an original and a very special bunch is thus formed. We believe
    there’s something special and unique about what we do and we’re waiting for you
    to place your orders, so we can delight you with the taste, as it’s the taste
    we first and foremost pursue, while the design comes after that.

    Therefore, whether you opt for making the most of an ordinary celebration, the March Amulet, the Women’s Day, whether you wish to surprise your nearest and dearest with a well-wishing thought uttered differently, now you have the perfect opportunity to give life a lot more taste and a lot more colour! (EN)





  • A fresh turn for children’s literature published in Romania

    A fresh turn for children’s literature published in Romania


    The Fairy-Tale Association of Writers for children and teenagers is a professional association. It was established in 2018 and it seeks to promote contemporary Romanian literature for children. The Association also supports creators and facilitates the access of children coming from underprivileged families to books and tales. Due to the numerous ongoing projects, thousands of children and youngsters had the chance to meet their favorite writers and their works, in libraries, schools, museums, community centers or bookfairs and festivals. Each year, the Fairly Tale writers travel to villages and underprivileged communities, in a bid to meet children there, staging creative workshops and making book donations as part of the Fairy Tale Caravans. The LittleLit Festival the Association has organized connects literature for children written in Romania to the international one, while the educational resources the Fairy Tale writers create support pupils, teachers and librarians. This year, the Fairy-Tale Association has held a series of educational workshops which promoted friendship, inclusion, diversity and tolerance. The workshops have been tailored for children aged 6 to 20, living in several rural localities across Romania. The workshops are part of the project Play Your Book! which kicked off with a book-raising campaign. We sat down and spoke to one of the founders of Fairy Tale Association, writer Victoria Pătrașcu, about the role of the Association and about the workshops held this year.



    Victoria Patrascu:



    “Fairy-Tale, the Association of writers for childrens and teenager books is an association which, ever since it has come into being, in 2018, has sought to support creators of literature for children in Romania and, especially, to facilitate the access of children, and mainly those living in underprivileged areas, to contemporary literature for children. We shall not refrain from admitting that quite a few of the communal libraries have an outdated or a limited amount of book supply, and the children living there do not get round to reading contemporary stories, that is why they do not find themselves in the literature they read. Obviously, they also do not have the chance to meet writers of contemporary literature. On a number of occasions we found out those children had been literally taken aback by the fact that we, the writers, were alive and kicking, we were living human beings, we were writers of our time. Every time we went there, our encounters with those children are extraordinary, and in the long run they are impressed with the tales we tell, thereby discovering how exactly they can tackle literature. Our project, Play your Book!, one of the most recent ones, starting off from the tales, seeks to enable us to play and learn at the same time. I held workshops in two localities in Dambovita County, in Conțești and Titu. The meeting we had in Conțești was extraordinary. There is also a community of traditional Rroma population and I interacted with a great many Rroma children who came to the library for the first time, and on that occasion they discovered that fabulous world of books, of stories or drawings, many even got an access pass for the library, and we were brimming with joy because of that. Allow me to also mention the fact that we were not alone in our undertaking, we had two extraordinary partners, namely EduCab, the Communal Libraries Network and the Arthur Publishers, the one who helped us take new books to those places and reshuffle the already outdated book supply we found there.”



    “Play your Book !” continued with the work on a pedagogical kit, prepared by the women members of the Fairy Tales Association. It is an important project, meant to offer educators and librarians alternative methods to explore the stories which as part of childrens literature. Through this pedagogical kit that will be given out to a great many librarians, teachers, primary school teachers and cultural educators, the project caters for the dissemination of the European values and encourages critical thinking in as many communities as possible across the country.



    One of the women writers, founders of the Fairy Tale Association, Victoria Pătrașcu, is a writer of books and plays for children. Victoria Patrascu had her debut with The Day Sleep Ran Away, brought out by the Nemi Publishers in 2008 and the Book for Children Publishers, 2017, the book that enjoyed a real success, being subsequently turned into a stage play, featuring the Momolino troupe, or into a radio drama, as a Radio Romania production. In 2012, Victoria Patrascu published an anthology titled The Dwarf Oak Tree, the Best Father that Can Be, brought out by the Childrens Book Publishers. The book was a finalist as part of the Ready for Press Gala. In 2013, The Oak Tree, the Best Father that Can Be was turned into a radio play and broadcast by Radio Romanias National Radio Drama Desk. In 2017, the volume was awarded the Excellence Prize for Childrens Literature, awarded by the Itsy Bitsy Radio Channel. Other books for children followed. Aaaaa Love Story and the Little Notes Chance, brought out by Cartier Publishers, TiriBomBamBura, Five Rolling Stories, brought out by the Guthenberg Books Publishers, Letters from Lapona, Zuralo and the Charmed Little Wheel, Zuralis Song, Gaston Tomberon, the hero of Acheron, The Untamed Women, A Recipe for Courage, Ariadnas Amazing Journeys. Victoria Patrascu is also the author of The Little Pretzels Adventures, brought out by the Univers Publishers and The Dragon Number 32.



    With details on her writers undertaking, here is Victoria Pătrașcu herself.



    “I have been trying hard that, apart from the activities I am involved in, with the Fairy Tale Association, I should find time for myself to write. The most recent story I wrote is The Dragon number 32, it saw a rather belated launch as part of this years edition of the Bookfest Bookfair in Bucharest and I was very happy when, yet again, I had a face-to-face meeting with the children. It is the story of a streetcar, rolling from the city center to the outskirts and somehow connecting the two worlds. It is a streetcar where little girl equally discovered the real and the fantastic Bucharest, since many times, children, when they look out the window, can see more things that we, the adults, can see. It is a story inspired by my daughter and by the rides I took to her school, by the people I met for many years, in streetcar 32. From that streetcar, connecting Rahova to the city center, I saw so many derelict yet still beautiful buildings, blocks of flats looking like bedrooms or giants, for the little girls in the story. It is a very touching story, also speaking about the homeless people who sometimes live in the belly of Dragon number 32, a story that can open many debates with the readers, a book that was sensationally illustrated by Mihaela Paraschivu.”(EN)






  • Up-and-coming Romanian-born filmmakers scooping awards in Cannes

    Up-and-coming Romanian-born filmmakers scooping awards in Cannes


    La
    civil, the film directed by Teodora Ana Mihai, scooped the Prix de l’Audace (Prize
    for courage) award as part of the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film
    Festival, held over July 5 and 17, 2021. This year, the festival’s Un certain
    Regard section returned to its original mission and format, that of presenting
    the young and the research cinematography. Or at least that is what the general
    delegate of the festival, Thierry Frémaux, said, when he announced the section.
    La Civil will be distributed by Voodoo Films in Romania. Its premiere is scheduled
    sometime this fall, as part of the 12th edition of Les Films de
    Cannes à Bucarest Festival, to be held over October 22 and 31st. La
    Civil is a Belgium-Mexico-Romania production, involving Menuetto Film in
    Belgium and enjoying the support of Eurimages. La Civil has been highly recommended
    by several well-established filmmakers, such as The Dardenne Brothers known for
    their film production company Films du Fleuve in Belgium or Michel Franco of
    Mexico, the director of The Theorem. The director of photography is Marius
    Panduru, known among other things, for Policeman, Adjective, Closer to the
    Moon, Aferim! and If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle .


    La
    civil is Teodora Ana Mihai’s first feature film. Teodora was born in
    Bucharest, in 1981. In 1989 Teodora Ana Mihai relocated to Belgium, together
    with her parents. When she was in high school in San Francisco, California
    Teodora discovered her passion for cinematography. She pursued a study
    programme with the Film Academy in New York. She began working as a screenplay
    writer in Belgium, then she was assistant director. La Civil tells the story
    of Cielo, a Mexican mother who is searching for her daughter who was kidnaped
    by the members of a drug cartel. The authorities fail to help her so Cielo
    decides to go on her own completely. Gradually, Cielo turns from a house wife
    into a vengeful activist. La Civil is based on true facts. The film is the outcome
    of many years of research Teodora Ana Mihai did jointly with Mexican writer Habacuc
    Antonio de Rosario. Initially, when she began her research, Teodora Ana Mihai had
    set for herself the task of making a documentary.


    Teodora Ana Mihai:

    I have been familiar with Mexico ever since I was a child, and the Mexico
    I used to know back then was completely different from today’s country. You
    were quite safe as you were driving your car, you could go places you were safe
    as a tourist as well. Since 2006, when president Felipe Calderón declared war on
    drugs, more than 60.000 people went missing, and that political decision had
    and still has a strong impact. As I’ve said before, there were a couple of
    regions left where you could go as a tourist, there were places where you got
    greater safety, but mainly in the northern regions, close to the US border, you
    could be in trouble. And as we speak, such a situation is spread rather widely
    across several Mexican states. That is exactly why we picked such a topic,
    because there is an impending need for a debate on the present situation in
    Mexico. It is in no way okay to get out of your house in the morning, going to
    work or to school, and go missing, with nobody knowing what happened. I
    wondered what it was like to be an adolescent against such a backdrop, what it
    was like to be a parent, what it means to live in an insecure society.
    Initially, in 2015, when, jointly with Habacuc Antonio de Rosario, I began my
    documentation, the idea was for us to speak with as many families as possible,
    of the victims of drug cartels. It took us two and a half years to speak with
    very many people tackling that scourge, in the event of making a documentary.
    We eventually gave up on that idea, as our documentary would have presented
    illegal circumstances, sensitive statements, and we did not want to jeopardize
    anybody.


    Teodora
    Ana Mihai and Habacuc Antonio de Rosario gave up on the idea of making a
    documentary film altogether. Instead, they decided to tell the story of Miriam
    Rodríguez Martínez, a woman who was shot dead right in front of her house after
    she found her daughter’s kidnappers and murderers.

    Teodora Ana Mihai:


    During
    the investigation, I met Miriam Rodríguez Martínez, about whom much has been
    written as of late, there even was an article in the New York Times, about her activity,
    but that occurred four years after she died, unfortunately. We had the chance
    to meet her and talk to her, that is how the film’s main character was born,
    Cielo, the mother of the girl who was seized and murdered by a drug cartel. After
    several failed attempts to find help from the authorities, she tried to do
    things all by herself, she went on her own completely. As I was saying, we did
    lots of interviews, and my idea, initially, was to write the story from a
    teenager boy or a teenager girl’s point of view, but I met Miriam Rodríguez
    Martínez, who had found out we were doing our investigation in the region, on
    the issue, and told us what happened to her.
    Her story prompted me to make my decision, the view point in our film
    will be a mother’s viewpoint. The film, in fact, is also a tribute we paid to
    her and to all the families who told us what happened to them. Unfortunately,
    we heard lots of strong and tragical stories about that.


    The
    Flanders Audiovisual Fund was the main financier of La Civil. The production
    also enjoyed the joint support of Belgium’s Cinematography and Audiovisual
    Centre, Romania’s national Cinematography Centre and Eurimages, European
    Cinema Support Fund. The filming took place over November and December 2020 in Durango,
    Mexico, at the time of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic was ongoing.


    (Translation by Eugen Nasta)