Radu Muntean and his resident co-scriptwriter Alexandru Baciu produced fiction about complex love relationships in unadorned scenes that were spun out at length in the films The Paper Will Be Blue, Boogie and Tuesday, After Christmas. The Romanian HBO documentary Visiting Room shows that love goes where it almost can’t: as far as jail. Two prisoners maintain an intimate love affair for years. By writing to each other. Sometimes five letters a week, many pages, and with life-size sketched hearts.
They explain how it started, after they happened to see each other on a photo. How creatively they had to work to meet each other physically. And how they even got married. Love knows no barriers, maybe specifically for those who are surrounded by iron bars every day.
Muntean and Baciu record the love stories without judging, in a transparent, detached style. They manage to keep their distance and at the same time penetrate deeply to the soul of these prisoners, for whom love seems to be their only hope.
Film details
- Country of production
- Romania
- Year
- 2011
- Festival edition
- IFFR 2012
- Length
- 60'
- Medium/Format
- Betacam Digi
