VALEA PLÂNGERII / VALLEY OF SIGHS

Transnistria was still part of the Soviet Union when German and Romanian troops invaded in 1941. Along with many Jewish deportees, some 25,000 Roma were transported there from Romania. The prisoners were interred in appalling conditions, for the most part lacking food and winter clothing. It was a massacre perpetrated in slow motion: half of the deportees starved or froze to death if not killed by typhoid or acts of arbitrary violence first. Something of the unimaginable scale of this atrocity is conveyed by VALEA PLÂNGERII / VALLEY OF SIGHS, a documentary that is cautious and tenacious in equal measure. It shows interviews with survivors (who were children at the time) and eye-witnesses from surrounding villages, unearths military and police documents that plot the “progress” of the on-going genocide, juxtaposes this material with images of idyllic countryside in which the horrors of the past are barely conceivable. The result is a multi-layered filmic monument to the victims of a little-known chapter of the holocaust – and one that continues, in Romania, to be a taboo subject.

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MIHAI ANDREI LEAHA
Born 1985 in Cluj-Napoca, Romania.
Graduated in intercultural and media studies. Founder of Triba Film independent production company. Has made numerous short films and one feature.

FILMOGRAPHY (SELECTION)
2007 / PÂINEA AMARǍ / THE BITTER BREAD (doc)
2011 / PRIVINDU-SE PE EI INSISI: BABALUDA LUDA / BABALUDA LUDA – LOOKING AT THEMSELVES (doc)
2012 / BROSCATU. POVESTITORUL / BROSCATU. THE STORYTELLER (doc)
2012 / MUZICANTUL DIN GOETTINGEN / THE STREET MUSICIAN (doc)
2013 / VALEA PLÂNGERII / VALLEY OF SIGHS


ANDREI CRIŞAN
Born 1987 in Cluj-Napoca, Romania.
Studied film at Babeş Bolyai University in Cluj. Co-founder of Triba Film. Has worked on numerous documentary and feature projects.

FILMOGRAPHY (SELECTION)
2012 / HOIA / HOIA
2013 / VALEA PLÂNGERII / VALLEY OF SIGHS


IULIA ELENA HOSSU
Born 1979 in Cluj-Napoca, Romania.
Graduated in anthropology and intercultural studies. Worked at Romanian Institute for Research on National Minorities (RIRNM). Co-founder of Triba Film.

FILMOGRAPHY (SELECTION)
2013 / VALEA PLÂNGERII / VALLEY OF SIGHS