2025罗马尼亚·德国短片
Fragments of memories are brought to the surface by the Blue Danube Waltz, revealing the lesser-known history of the Danube – the Black Sea Canal. While borders between filmmaker and actress become blurry, languages and layers of the past intertwine.
„I don’t know my name. I don’t know my origins. I only have memories of a place. But I don’t know if I ever was there.” Where? Along the course of the Danube in Strauss the Younger’s famous waltz. From Germany, where the actress’ great-grandfather survived the Second World War only to later live in Eastern Berlin, to Romania, to the Danube-Black Sea Canal, where the filmmaker’s great-grandfather was part of the political prisoners subjected to hard labor by the communist regime. Starting from a beloved cliché, “The Blue Danube”, Teona Galgoțiu’s film proposes an anguishing but beautiful exercise of alienation against the great imagined common histories – including cinematic ones – championing, instead, everything that is most immediate in a human connection: touch, play, confession. (Călin Boto)