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Maia – Portrait with Hands

Alexandra Gulea
Romania / Germany
90'

Maia (Alexandra Gulea) was born into a semi-nomadic population under ethnic cleansing. Her granddaughter, the director, who shares the same name, has produced a vivid visual reconstruction of her journey through the 20th century. Her history blends into the larger History.

It’s been long since the last time cinema dodged a personal story for the sake of a bigger shared history. Alexandra Gulea has made a film about Alexandra Gulea, her paternal grandmother whose name she inherited – a perfect homonymous double, letter-for-letter, and so,distressing. To the filmmaker, her grandmother embodied the sensibility, the authority, the identity of being Aromanian, all now but spectres to her. Channeling the grandmother’s memory, Maia – Portrait with Hands is a ritualistic invocation, the “total” mise-en-scène, perfected to the last infinitesimal detail of an entire past century of Aromanian history: the century of the Balkan Wars, of the Aromanian genocide, of Eastern communism. Equally, Maia’s century, image by image, image born out of image — It’s a rare history, one so sensitive about the ineffable. (Călin Boto)

Screening date and location

September 26th, 6:00 PM, Cinema Elvire Popesco

Tickets

Awards & Festivals

Alexandra Gulea

Alexandra Gulea  graduated in 1997 cum laude at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts in Paris. After participating in several painting exhibitions, she studied documentary film at Munich Film School and, since 1999, has directed documentary Films, shorts, video installations and a fiction feature. She has also worked as an editor on several movies.

  • Technical sheet
  • Production and distribution
  • Director: Alexandra Gulea
  • Cast: Maria Cuzmin, Emilia Dobrin, Vava Ștefănescu, Aromanians from the Photo Archives and Film Archives, Fishermen of the Danube Delta
  • Director of Photography - Digital: George Chiper-Lillemark
  • Director of Photography - Super 8mm: Nicu Ilfoveanu
  • Additional Images: Andreas Bolm
  • Film archives: Milton & Ianaki Manakia
  • Sound: Andreas Bolm, Flora Pop
  • Set Designer: Ramona Stanca
  • First AD: Vladimir Nițescu, Ciprian Panaite
  • Choreography: Vava Ștefănescu
  • Original Score: Vlaicu Golcea, Stephan Dunkelman, Stéphane Karo
  • Edit: Frédéric Fichefet și Alexandra Gulea
  • Produced by: Anchor Films
  • Co-produced by: WeltFilm, Trident Film & Media, Vent d’Est
  • Producer: Ana Maria Pîrvan
  • Co-producers: Alexandra Gulea, Kristina Konrad, Ruxandra Șerban

Screens

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Maia – Portrait with Hands

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Maia (Alexandra Gulea) was born into a semi-nomadic population under ethnic cleansing. Her granddaughter, the director, who shares the same name, has produced a vivid visual reconstruction of her journey through the 20th century. Her history blends into the larger History.

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