Collective (2019)
Director: Alexander Nanau Run Time: 109 min. Rating: NR Language: Romanian, English
Starring: Catalin Tolontan, Mirela Neag, Razvan Lutac
Presented in the Virtual Screening Room in partnership with Magnolia Pictures.
“Every now and then a documentary doesn’t just open your eyes but tears you apart…This is truly a documentary for our times”
– Jay Weissberg, Variety
About the film:
World Premiere at the 2019 Venice International Film Festival. Official Selection of TIFF, Sundance Film Festival, and AFI Fest. Winner of Best International Documentary Film at Zurich Film Festival. Romania’s selection for Best International Feature Film at the 93rd Academy Awards.
On October 30, 2015, a fire at the Bucharest nightclub Colectiv killed 27 people and injured many more, leading to mass protests that brought down top Romanian government officials.
In a masterclass on the impact of investigative journalism, Director Alexander Nanau follows a team from Romania’s Gazeta Sporturilor newspaper as they uncover the institutional lies spread by the government and the media about how the authorities were perfectly managing the tragedy, ultimately uncovering a vast health-care fraud that enriched moguls and politicians and led to the deaths of innocent citizens.
About the filmmaker:
Romanian filmmaker Alexander Nanau’s work takes the viewer on a journey of personal growth through pressing social issues. He was awarded an International Emmy for his documentary The World According to Ion B (2009) chronicling the rise of a 62 year-old homeless man whose cinematic collage art granted him a new life as one the most important contemporary Romanian artists. His most recent film, Toto and His Sisters (2014), a powerful tale of siblings caught in the poverty-stricken Bucharest slums, won several awards on the festival circuit, including at Zurich, Munich and Cannes.
He spoke with Nick Bradshaw for BFI about filming his health-care exposé, Collective, and storytelling in the midst of a pandemic.
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