↩

BEING NINA

Adina Mocanu
Romania/France/Germany, 2022
18 min.

Nina Kulagina, the Russian housewife with telekinetic powers that became famous during the Cold War, tells us her ‘true’ life story in the South of Romania, set in a parallel universe.

History tells us that Nina Kulagina, the Russian housewife who took the world by surprise during the Cold War with her telekinetic powers, unsuccessfully tried to fool science. But what if Kulagina outsmarted history? Inspired by the story of such an alleged charlatan, the artist Adina Mocanu speculates a fantastic history about the limits of history: maybe the woman was indeed extraordinary, and that’s exactly why our modern narratives have become afraid. In the same way, against the austere b&w filmed recordings from the sixties, those meant to prove the powers of the Russian woman, Mocanu make-belives her alternative images of Kulagina, recalling the genuine, perfectly simple fantasy of silent cinema (Călin Boto, BIEFF 2022)

Date and Location

1st of October, 18:00, Cinemateca Eforie

Tickets

Adina Mocanu

Adina Mocanu (b. 1990, Romania) currently lives and works in Berlin. She studied at The National University of Arts in Bucharest. Between 2015-2016, Adina was an art resident of the French Academy in Rome – Villa Medici. In 2017, she was resident and art teacher at Collins Living-Learning Center, University of Indiana, USA. Adina works mainly with performance and video, but she often integrates installation, photography and drawing in her practice. She is interested in the different types of intimacy and in 2019, she started an empirical research on the occult and how the otherworldly elements can be integrated in an artistic discourse.

  • Technical sheet
  • CAST: Adina Mocanu
  • SCRIPT/CINEMATOGRAPHY/EDITING: Adina Mocanu
  • VISUAL EFFECTS: Adina Mocanu, Ruxandra Pintilie

National Short Film Competition 1

All films →

FOR YOU CAN SEE NO OTHER

Thea Lazăr | Duration 8 min.

A furious and lyrical hybrid animation that scans through a history of art: man-made paintings of women looking at themselves in mirrors, as to blame them for “being vain”. Tired of being an instrument of the male gaze, the mirror steps outside dogma.

MAYBE THERE IS NO DISTANCE

Letiția Popa | Duration 29 min.

A phone conversation about a past relationship, where the two lovers try to make sense of what was left unsaid between them offers a glimpse into what it feels like to not belong in your country of refuge and the emotional implications that are triggered from that.

DANCEN

Corina Andrian | Duration 16 min.

Dancen is the result of brief, intimate encounters between five dancers. What do we say when we don’t talk? The film choreographs those fleeting impulses that live in between moments of the day, emphasizing their affective essence.

BEING NINA

Adina Mocanu | Duration 18 min.

Nina Kulagina, the Russian housewife with telekinetic powers that became famous during the Cold War, tells us her ‘true’ life story in the South of Romania, set in a parallel universe.

ARCHIVAL STUDY (PORTRAITS)

Răzvan Anton | Duration 6 min.

Archival Study (Portraits) compiles digitised and edited 8mm footage shot mostly by the director’s father during the ‘70s and ‘80s. Overcoming the awkwardness of personal exposure through the methods of archival classification, Răzvan Anton proceeded with treating this material in a similar fashion to the public archive.

A.I. POETRIES OF FEMALE AND NON-FEMALE BEINGS IN GAS STATIONS AT NIGHT

Cristina Iliescu | Duration 18 min.

How should one closely navigate female and non-binary experience through virtual mediation? This experimental documentary casts a type of gaze that transcends the boundaries of concrete reality, looking for the human factor within generally accessible technologies.

Meniu →