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This year started off with several new projects and project perspectives for our company, which is really good news these days. We have written a Structural Funds proposal for the Romanian Mountain Guides Association, we have worked on editing and producing 300,000 DVDs for a foundation in Brussels, we are in talks with a UK based health clinic to become their Romanian reps and we are entering the final and very important year of our five year project with the British NGO World Horse Welfare. One would think I should be happy and relaxed planning away our strategies and implementing techniques. read more…

I am making a documentary film about the events that took place in January 1990, using an extraordinary archive of material that was filmed by Laurentiu Calciu, who got a video camera just after the revolution. We have some fascinating material of ordinary people on the streets furiously debating about all things political, social and economic. The material is filmed with a patience that gives an insight into what people were thinking just after Ceausescu fell.

The first thing one must do when making a documentary film is to research the subject. This involves watching any existing films as well as footage (unedited read more…

Making films is probably the most boring profession in the world — as well as the most glamorous.  They say making films is like going to war: lots of hanging around while not knowing what the hell is going on; and then a sudden, brief, unsatisfactory burst of action.

Although documentaries are generally more boring than feature films they can be more interesting to make.  When making observational documentaries, you follow an interesting character around and let him tell the story; this means you constantly hear unexpected things, get led into unexpected places, meet new people — none of which would be possible in a feature film in which every word, gesture and action is controlled. read more…

I am sitting in a Ministry of Culture seminar about film making and it has all the hallmarks of a rotten event: a huge queue at the registry desk (but nobody saying hello), nowhere for coats, coffee servers arguing among themselves, an electrical fault that the secretary of state loudly complains about, doors that squeak horribly every time someone comes in (and there was a constant flow of latecomers), a loud buzzing noise from the speakers and technical problems with the presentations.
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When I was in Montenegro recently I checked into a small guest house and asked if they had internet. “Of course we do” boomed the big cheery lady who runs the place, but when I tried to get online it didn’t work. I asked for help and she went to fetch the Siberian who was living with his wife on the floor below. “He knows English” she cried as she hurried down the frozen stone steps.

A small, alert and friendly young man came in and tried to help me connect. But it still didn’t work, and we ended up on the outside terrace which was the only place (apart from his room) where the wireless signal actually did work. We sat there for hours, despite the rain and cold, and I learned about Siberia.  read more…

Who knew Romania had almost a million working horses? Even though communism was all about mechanization, these horses are its legacy. After the 1989 Revolution the peasants were given back their little plots of land, but soon realized they couldn’t work that land without tractors. So they decided to do it the old way and turned to the reliable horse. Trouble is that during all those years of mechanization, they had forgotten how to look after their horses. read more…