On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the declaration of Moldova’s Independence, IPN News Agency decided to depict the portrait of the current Republic of Moldova. For the purpose, we challenged a number of people, including state officials, politicians, businessmen, civil rights activists and persons without posts and titles, but who have what to say. The generic picture is entitled “Thoughts about and for Moldova”.
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Sergiu Prodan, head of the Moldovan Filmmakers’ Union: Moviemaking has progressed less than the country as a whole; it had no ups and downs, it stayed at the bottom.
At a person’s birthday, one praises his or her achievements and speaks with optimism about the future and this applies even more to a country, says filmmaker Sergiu Prodan. However, he adds that he doesn’t know another country to have missed as many chances as Moldova. “We had a lot of opportunities. In these 25 years we have been through some many dreams and disillusionments that would be enough for a hundred years. Life was tumultuous, full of events and games. It wasn’t boring and we can be proud of it”, said the artist.
According to him, the abovementioned can be easily included under the “accomplishments” column. He explained that to “try but fail” and to fail intentionally are two different things. “I get the impression that we failed in everything intentionally. We wanted this and we got it. We wanted to fake some processes and we were successful at it. Our reputation has known some fantastic ups and downs, from being the most unknown country in the Soviet Union we became a success story and then we fell into the inferno again, as Europe’s poorest country. That’s quite a feat. We have worked, plotted, planned for it”, quipped Prodan.
By comparison, he says, filmmaking did not evolve at all and was practically reduced to an amateurish level, but in a good sense of the word. Cinematography was left to the people who did it our of passion, not as a job. Over the last 25 years, everything that has been done is thanks to inertia. The state eliminated movies from social life and only periodically faked some initiatives in the field, which were unavoidably fruitless, explained the director. According to him, there is no local mechanism to sell a movie and for consumers to pay for it. All we have is a branch of the worldwide distribution system.
As concerns the long-awaited Film Law, Prodan says it has been reduced to a mere formality, an institution – the National Film Center. Moreover, this has been done only because the Center is meant to represent government interests in the field. “The institution now exists only de jure, while de facto we have only director Valeriu Jereghi’s efforts to do something, despite lacking the tools and legal powers he needs. We can’t be mad at this. You can be mad when you wanted to do something, when you tried, you put effort into it, when you had all the necessary support but you failed because there was competition and someone better than you succeeded. Then you are motivated, stimulated. However, in our case it’s not like this. No, everything is fine, nobody tried, nobody succeeded. The hopes are intact, future awaits us”, says Prodan.
20 years ago, when everybody was thinking about finding Moldova a place in this world, many said that wine can represent our country. Sergiu Prodan notes that, in the end, it was not our wine but our financial system that made us useful in the world. “We did not become the world’s bordello, the world’s wine cellar, but we became its money laundry. It’s not that easy. Not every country has the brains to design such a system, to implement and maintain it”, stressed the director.
In his opinion, change in Moldova must start from the mentality of the people. “We are still Homo sovieticus, who escaped the supervision and the stick of the Soviet Communist Party, which was tough, but at least had some principles and values. We are exactly like kids when parents leave the apartment. Parents can be good or bad, violent, alcoholic, unfair, but when they leave the house, children do whatever they want. We are still these kids who, after 25 years, still have grown up to become parents, people in charge of the house, of this way of life. We are still those kids who cannot believe their freedom of action and are doing whatever comes to mind. We are afraid that soon our evil, alcoholic parents might return and punish us for what we are doing now, because we are aware we are not behaving now”, explained Prodan.
An independent man is a rich man. A rich man is an independent man. The richness of this man is not in the number of zeros in his account, thinks the filmmaker. In Moldova, rich people are the least independent of all as they cannot do what they want or think right, they have to do what they must. Their course of action is limited by the situation, by competition, by the context, by the level they have reached. It’s the same with the whole country. Fortunately, Prodan feels himself an independent person who can do what he likes. “By doing this, I can earn my bread. I can refuse large amounts of money if for one reason or another what I am asked to do doesn’t fit with my views”, said the artist.
In 10-15 years, he expects Moldova to be the same as now. “For 25 years, I have hoped we would grow, overcome our childish illnesses and get out of childhood, but it did not happen. Regardless of how high the stakes are, how many zeros are behind a number, how important the persons trying to influence things are, on a global level what we are doing is childishness”, concluded the head of the Filmmakers’ Union.
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Sergiu Prodan is a director, screenwriter, producer, best known for this movie “The Bed of Procustes”. He also founded the PR and Advertising Workshop “Sergiu Prodan”.
Anastasia Rusu, IPN
