Interview of Anca Damian, Romania Libera, 22 September 2010, taken by Gabriele Lupu
Anca Damian is the Director behind an animated documentary about the tragic case of Claudiu Crulic, a Romanian citizen who died in a Polish prison.
The case of 33 year-old Romanian citizen Claudiu Crulic, who died on January 18th 2008 after a long hunger strike in a Warsaw prison, shocked the world. Crulic protested against his arrest but did not get any assistance from the Romanian Consulate – he ended up alone and completely abandoned. However, Claudiu has now become a character in Anca Damian’s cinematic re-telling of his story, the narrator of his own death, with Romanian actor Vlad Ivanov taking on the role (or rather, the voice) of Crulic. Anca Damian speaks to Romanian newspaper România liberă about the way she chose to turn one man’s tragedy in an animated documentary.
How did you get the idea of turning Claudiu’s life into a film?
Claudiu Crulic’s story has always fascinated me, especially his death: he could see his body leaving this world with each passing day, while his soul was still there. The thing is that when I was travelling in festivals with my film “Crossing Dates”, I happened to see “Hunger", a great film on the same theme. This story took place an Irish prison, but it was pretty similar: a hunger strike followed by a tragic death. I was put off and felt like giving up the project. “Hunger" was a great film, so somehow I felt that mine was now redundant. Still, I couldn’t help continuing the research, even if it looked pretty impossible at the time. I had to face a lot of circumspection and hostility on both Romanian and Polish sides and also had to track down information in a country whose language I did not speak. The story was sad itself, so it all felt like a burden for me. But I thought it was my duty to actually make it. I would have certainly felt guilty (don’t know exactly why) to give up the project from a desire to make my life easier.
“Moldavians have this adorable self-ironic rhetoric"
It’s pretty surprising that you chose to make an animated documentary on this topic, instead of a classical one. Why this choice?
First I got the idea of creating a docu-drama with a fictive journalist who would interact with real characters who witnessed Crulic’s drama. Claudiu was a good excuse to analyze the deviations of our so called 21st century ‘civilization’, when people passively witness someone’s slow death and do nothing to prevent it. It happened many times in history, in different contexts. But what was interesting for me was to keep the details of Claudiu’s story completely unknown, like an anonymous abyss that the people around it would turn their backs on, fearing they themselves would fall in it.
The idea of doing an animation allowed me to represent this abyss. Animation gives you a lot of freedom, so I took advantage of its tools. It sort of justified itself, really: how else would you make a dead person narrate his own story? I didn’t give up the idea of the journalist though, I kept it for a feature film I am currently writing with my colleague Bogdan Mustaţă.
Despite the tragic story, your character narrates his life with a lot of humor and compassion. I, as a viewer, didn’t feel the urge to go out and break the windows of a Romanian Consulate after seeing the film. So, in the end, what is the message?
I believe in complex feelings. “Laughing and crying” is a much stronger emotion than crying alone. Besides, if the film would have stuck to the drama, it would have become unbearable to watch. Claudiu Crulic came from Dorohoi, in Moldavia, and Moldavians have this adorable self-ironic rhetoric, which probably comes from their wisdom. How else could Claudiu narrate such a tragic story if not by being detached and ironical? I don’t believe in anger. I wouldn’t want someone to get the urge to break windows after seeing my film. But I do want the ones behind those windows to admit their guilt, at least towards themselves if not publicly. A cathartic guilt.
The film should be like a play: I want people to enjoy it, to laugh and cry, and then… to get better. Or at least to wish they were better.
How did you track down Vlad Ivanov, with his wonderful Moldavian accent, for Crulic’s voice?
Vlad comes from Botoşani, a neighboring town to Dorohoi. And he’s also an exceptional actor. When I sent him the text he was filming something in Spain. I heard him read the text and I knew at once that he was the man for Claudiu Crulic. He actually confessed to me that he did feel like he was Claudiu.
The financing of the project was pretty difficult. Do you think there were some political reasons why your film didn’t get the right support?
Nowadays decisions have economic, not political reasons. It’s easy to see that politics is just a mask for economic interests? And you can easily see through the mask. From a political point of view, I think the film should have been immediately financed. A Romanian citizen died when under arrest in another country, the Minister of External Affairs resigned from his post. Politically speaking, the topic was more than eligible. The problem is that I belong to a minority in Romanian cinema, which is predominantly macho. After all these years of working as a director and DOP, I think I’m not wrong to say that there’s a lot of misogyny in our small world. Like I said, I represent a minority and I constantly had to face this process of ‘feudal’ financing in Romanian cinema. But I still believe this film will have its own way and the amount of energy I invested in it will push it forward. Good wins. “All the ladies in the world knows that good always wins”, to quote the Romanian singer Tamango.
Going in a hunger strike to prove your innocence is pretty extreme - and rare - nowadays. Why do you think Claudiu Crulic’s case went unnoticed at the time, and why did he have to die to get his story told?
Probably the main reason was that it all happened during detention. Maybe you, like me, see this as an act of rare heroism, but I met people who thought it was just his own fault – ‘why on earth didn’t he eat and choose to live?’ This probably means “he was stupid”, “he deserved it”, “he was a thief”, “he had a penal record” etc. Indeed, Claudiu had been arrested previously in Poland, twice in fact, but the way the truth gets distorted is absolutely hallucinatory! He was a human being, for God’s sake, regardless of whether he was stealing or not! Guilty people, please step to the left! Innocent people, please step to the right! It doesn’t work like that, if only it were so easy… This man wanted to be heard and his only weapon was his own body. He did need help. The only people who saw it like that were the doctors in the hospital where he taken (only 16 hours before death), and Malgorzata Nocun, the journalist who discovered the case. Everybody else was either afraid or completely indifferent. And the diplomats also tried to keep the case quiet, so we only found out when it was too late.
Crulic was a Romanian immigrant. Is an immigrant, especially a Romanian, regarded as a second-class citizen?
Have you ever seen a strawberry picker when they come back home after the work season? They all look worn out, sad and hopeless. Of course some of them abuse their presence abroad and steal, but even their case is pretty sad if you ask me. I totally sympathize with them.
Did you have access to Polish police and magistracy files in the research phase?
Yes, they did send photocopies and gave me the right to use them in the documentary.
Are you totally persuaded by Crulic’s innocence?
In this last case from 10th of September 2007, yes, I believe he was innocent.
Romanian cinema, especially the new wave, deals with a lot of topics that the authorities tend to ignore. Do you see art as a sort of ‘process’ that eventually brings people to face their own guilt and makes them pay one way or another for their incompetence or ignorance?
We all end up paying for our own thoughts or deeds. But it’s usually much easier to expose other people’s guilt than our own. I believe art should compensate for our mistakes and bring back a sense of normality, humanity and compassion.