Radio România Internațional

Tag: unrest

  • At 83 actress Dorina Lazăr features in new film and theater play

    At 83 actress Dorina Lazăr features in new film and theater play

    Dorina Lazăr, one of the most appreciated actresses in Romania, received this year the Excellence Award of the Radio Romania Culture Awards Gala. Appreciated by the public and critics alike, Dorina Lazăr has played dozens of roles, both in theater plays and films. As director of the Odeon Theater for almost 20 years, she always supported young artists and bet on innovative productions. At 83 years old, Dorina Lazăr returns to theater and film with two remarkable roles. She plays the leading role in Radu Jude’s new film, Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World, which premiered at the Locarno International Film Festival, where it was awarded the Silver Leopard – Special Jury Prize, a Mention from the Ecumenical Jury and First Prize from the Youth Jury. The second memorable role of Dorina Lazăr this year is the main role in Neliniște – Unrest, a play by Ivan Vyrypaev, directed by Bobi Pricop.



    The newest film written and directed by Radu Jude, Romania’s proposal for a nomination at the 2024 Oscar Awards, in the Best International Feature Film category, is a satire about the new Romanian capitalism, a road movie in which Angela (played by Ilinca Manolache) crosses a crowded and hostile Bucharest, a drama about a man paralyzed after an occupational accident, and also a comedy about the making of a labor protection film. We spoke with Dorina Lazăr about the role she plays in Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World, about the film and montage, in which images from the production Angela goes on (directed in 1982 by Lucian Bratu, with Dorina Lazăr in the main role) enter into a dialogue with the images of the present.



    It was an extremely pleasant and honorable experience for me, I was happy to meet Radu Jude and shoot the film with him. I worked with a wonderful team, I’m talking mostly about actors, extremely talented and conscientious. Angela Goes On is a very good movie and I highly recommend it. It’s a film that has stood the test of time, even though it was made during communism. A film in which the entire team of actors acted very well and it was directed with great delicacy by Lucian Bratu. The film’s script was written by Eva Sîrbu. It was actually written for the actress Rodica Tapalagă, but Rodica did not know how to drive, so it was decided to choose someone who had a driving license. And since I was driving a car, they cast me as Angela. Coming back to Radu Jude’s film, I thank him for being so gentle, it was great that I played the scenes with my old partner László Miske in the same apartment where I shot Angela goes on. And I noticed during the shoot that on the shelves in that room there were photos of me and László Miske from 40 years ago, when we made that film. I can’t tell you how good and valued I felt, it’s a pleasure to work with Radu Jude. Not to mention that he handles everything with ease.



    Unrest is the fourth play written by Ivan Vyrypaev, a contemporary Russian playwright, theater and film director, screenwriter, producer and actor based in Poland and currently banned from theaters in his native country due to his anti-war stance. The play was staged by director Bobi Pricop at the Odeon Theatre. Similar to life, theater is and causes anxiety; each of us is a ball of anxieties that art, in all its forms, tries, and maybe even helps, to untangle says the director Bobi Pricop, who considers the role of Dorina Lazăr absolutely fantastic, of an overwhelming strength and scenic truth.



    Here is next Dorina Lazăr, who plays the role of the writer Ula Richter: When I invited the director Bobi Pricop to stage a show at the Odeon Theatre, last year, I was still the theaters director. I asked Bobi Pricop to come up with some proposals, and he came up with this piece, Unrest by Vyrypaev. I asked him about the cast, and he told me that I would play the lead role. I immediately refused, I told him no. No, for two reasons. The first is that I have grown old and you never know when that time comes, so I wouldn’t want the theater to invest in a show that after that can’t be played anymore. Or I might lose my memory and it is very difficult to find someone to replace you in such a role. But when I read the text translated into Romanian – I had originally read it in English – I realized that I really like it and that no matter what happens, I want to play this role. And so, we hit the road with five more actors, all stars.



    Nicoleta Lefter, Niko Becker, Alexandru Papadopol, Mihai Smarandache and Gabriel Pintilei complete the cast of the show Unrest, selected in the recent edition of the National Theater Festival. (LS)

  • Miners’ riots in the early 1990s

    Miners’ riots in the early 1990s


    The
    violent outbursts of June 13-15, 1990, having miners’ arrival in Bucharest as
    their momentum as well as the miners’ lashing out at Romanian capital city’s
    civilian population meant that Romanian society was backtracking on democracy,
    within six months since Romanians had regained their freedom in December 1989.
    The events back then proved that a society that had freshly emerged from a
    totalitarian political regime still had the demons of the past to fight before
    it healed completely. In June 1990, it was for the third time that Bucharest
    had been stormed by the miners, in a bid to back the then National Salvation
    Front against opposition parties. Among other things, miners’ riots were in
    fact a manifestation of hatred and intolerance against democratic pluralism
    which at that time was very difficult to become functional in Romania. Against
    the backdrop of the protest rallies mounted by the Opposition in April 1990 and
    in the aftermath of the election held on May 20, 1990, won by the National
    Salvation Front, tension was literally spiraling. On June 30, 1990, the state
    institutions tried to quash the protest rallies in University Square, which was
    the beginning of three-day long violent clashes that eventually claimed the
    lives of 6 people, leaving 750 other wounded.


    What
    happened over June 13-15 was a one-of-a-kind event. The historian Cristian Vasile told us what was so very unique about that
    event.


    Some of the historians placed it against the backdrop of the time span
    that occurred immediately after communism in Romania, describing it as the last
    repression of a communist origin ever to have been staged in the country. And
    they are right, I think, because manifestations back then, consisting in the
    reprisal of part of the civilian population, have certain points in common with
    what happened in national history immediately after 1944. An explanation of
    that could be the fact that the political staff and political practices of
    March, 1945, continued even after that date. The common political practice of instigating
    civilians against one another was also implemented in June 1990.


    It has
    been said that miners’ riots of June 1990 were made possible by the state
    institutions being weak, by the riot police failing to quash protest rallies on
    June 13.

    Historian Cristian Vasile:

    I also tend to believe in the theory of the riot police being weak and
    unable to contain certain forms of popular unrest. If we have a closer look at
    how things developed over June 13 and 15, mostly on June 13 as that is the
    climactic day, we can indeed see the riot police slackening, but there are also
    a couple of issues that have been hitherto unexplained. There are several recordings,
    real recordings, there are those radio interventions of then the deputy
    Interior Minister, general Diamandescu, who said something like we are going
    to set the buses ablaze, as agreed, to the recipient of his messages. What are
    we to make of that kind of exchange? Then there are concordant testimonies
    whereby there were not the rioters who set fire on the police building in the
    capital city, but the building was set ablaze from the inside. Also unexplained is how hundreds of policemen retreated with no defense, leaving
    the Interior Ministry building also unprotected.


    The
    new power embodied by Ion Iliescu had to be strengthened through the
    manipulation of the crowds, so most of those who analyzed miners’ riots view
    that as a meaningful explanation of events back then.

    Historian Cristian Vasile:


    The unrest that flared up in University Square and Victoria Road was
    quashed around midnight on the night to of June 13 and all through to 3 am, on June
    14. Riot police managed to have everything under control, rioters had been
    arrested. The miners came a little bit later, they were welcomed by the then
    president Ion Iliescu. Instead of defusing the tension, telling the miners the
    army and the police had everything under control, Ion Iliescu invited them to
    occupy University Square. What was the purpose of such a move, since a couple
    of hours earlier the police and the army totally controlled the situation? That
    utterly reckless invitation led to the violent clashes that broke out on June
    14, in the morning, and on the following day. So all in all, it was an
    absolutely pointless instigation to violence, a criminal act which was worthy
    of the Criminal Code.




    The miners’ riots of June 1990 were one last
    convulsion of the communist mindset, in a society that had but newly emerged
    from the collapse of the communist regime in December 1989.

    Cristian Vasile:

    Why the miners? Attempts were made with other categories of workers,
    even over June 13 and 14. There is official evidence of a call being made for
    workers from Bucharest, of several factories and plants, of the August 23 Plants
    and suchlike. Quite a few of the unions turned down the proposal and refused to
    intervene, on the grounds that the conflict was of a political nature and it
    was not for them to set things to rights. Yet it appears that the miners as a
    category were more receptive to the propaganda of the then National Salvation
    Front, of Iliescu’s regime. As for Ion Iliescu, he has been defending himself
    claiming he did not make his call to the miners alone, but to all responsible
    social forces. But that is an aggravating circumstance for somebody who is the
    president of a country. And it is here that the tragedy of those episode lies,
    there was the buoyancy of part of the Bucharest population who literally gave
    miners rounds of applause for what they were doing. And what they did was to
    beat young students to a pulp, as well as bearded men or women wearing
    mini-skirts. Which was a stark reminder of Ceausescu’s policy, of rockers being
    hunted in the 1970s.

    The
    price Romania had to pay for miners’ riots of June 13-15, 1990, was its own
    international isolation. Specifically, that meant the agreement with the IMF
    being frozen, but also the impossibility to contract another loan.
    Politically, miners’ riots of June 1990 stalled Romania’s gaining accession to
    the Council of Europe. It was not until 1993 that Romania became a member of
    the Council of Europe, much later than many other countries of the former
    Soviet Bloc.

    (Translation by Eugen Nasta)