The Dead Nation

Costică Acsinte was a photographer in Slobozia. For years he made portraits in his studio. Thousands of glass negatives were left behind. Radu Jude chose more than five hundred of those photographs. The ones he chose are from the thirties and the forties. What they show is ordinary small town life. Weddings, family portraits, everyday moments. There is no other image in the film. The sound comes from somewhere else entirely. The narration is read from the diary of Emil Dorian, a Jewish doctor. The diary covers the years from 1937 to 1944. Dorian wrote down how antisemitism rose. Radio broadcasts and anthems of the period are heard as well. Image and sound do not match. What happened in Romania is told in that gap. The eighty three minute film is a Romanian production Radu Jude finished in 2017.