WHEN FLAMINGOS FALL FROM THE SKY
Romania, 2022
16 min.
- Synopsis
- Curatorial presentation
Blurring the line between memory and imagination, the film tells the story of a girl and her father, who have embarked on a wintery voyage. As the girl loses her sight, she reminisces about a strange encounter with a baby flamingo, while her father questions her experience.
Dragoș Hanciu returns cinema to its founding gesture: that of looking. And he does it with a one-of-a-kind ease, recalling not as much the epistemological experiments of the neo-avant-garde, as they bring to mind the early days of the illusionists and impressionists. Usually, there is never a time when flamingos fall from the sky, let alone in Pitești. But a small girl could swear to her father that she certainly saw one, despite the strange disease that blurs her vision. The screen double-checks, chaining her memory of that day in search of the specific proof, but the blurry world seen by the child is one of no certainties. And as her memories come closer to the fact, what she’s seen matters less; what matters is how. (Călin Boto, BIEFF 2022)
