Three / Trei

This is an attempt to share the experience of being a stranger in a hidebound community. The first reaction that people have when they encounter an outsider on their territory is to stare. We, the authors, were welcomed with the same staring attitude during our residency in a small village, located in one of Romania’s southern provinces, Oltenia.
Provoked by this straight-forward look that people were giving us, we decided to face it as well. We used the camera as a response, mirroring the staring attitude back towards the locals. The result is an invitation to introspection. The old woman’s face becomes a landscape for our thoughts. The moving camera becomes an instrument of cyclical time, seeing generations passing, but not really changing their attitudes and behaviors.
In this isolated scenery, the old lady and the little girl are frozen, staring into the camera the same way a deer does when blinded by headlights. The two are looking through a peephole without knowing that on the other side there is actually somebody staring right back at them.

Directed by Robert Braga, Dragoș Hanciu, Andrei Inizian
Sound by Alexandru Popescu

Three, 6:27 minutes.
Experimental documentary, 2016.
Romania.

Festivals

Transient Visions - Johnson City, NY, 2016 - Corpus Programme, curated by Alyssa Micha
Experiments in Cinema v12.3 - Nex Mexico, 2017
Edinburgh IFF - Scotland, 2017: Black Box