Romanian spring

This protest is claimed the largest in the history of independent Romania (since 1989). What has made a lot of people to get to the streets?

– For me, it was a surprise that there were so many of us. This is the first big protest after the revolution in 1989 and Mineriads in 1999. We’ve had protests in 2012 when we managed to overturn the government, made the prime minister resign; and the protests in 2013 connected with Roșia Montană, the very picturesque area in Romania. The Canadian company wanted to dig for gold there and basically destroy the mountain. This protest has also been successful, the digging was canceled. And I think this was the moment when protesting has eventually become cool.

During the latest presidential elections in 2014, we protested against the prime minister. He was from social democrats and was one of two runner-ups for the presidency. On the election day, we had news that people abroad are not allowed to vote. They've had very few voting stations. People were queuing for all the day and they’ve started closing the stations before everyone has gotten to vote. This was a clear strategy not to let those who wouldn’t ever support social democrats vote in this elections. The spontaneous protest took place on the election day.  And by some miracle social democrats didn’t win.

«My generation receives information from Facebook, we know which source we should trust, the older generations receive the information from the TV»

The worst episode was in 2015 when we’ve had the club fire. 3 of my friends have died there. And several more people whom I know have survived in the fire. I’ve been there myself many times. It was a great place for people of my generation, people from creative industries. This club had no permission to exist and didn’t fit fireproof requirements. Our authorities were trying to assure us that no help is needed, that our hospitals will cope with it, our emergency services will take that under control. But in the end, there were around 20 people who’ve died in the fire. And from complications of injuries in hospitals, 63 more have died. Even those who managed to get out of the fire on their own feet have later died in the hospitals. Afterward, journalists have discovered that disinfectants in hospitals across the whole country were fake, they are 20 times less concentrated than it’s stated on the label. People were dying because of corruption. This had made people really angry and they’ve forced the government to resign.

So for one year, since December 2015 to December 2016, we had technocrat government. Those people are professionals in their fields, but not politicians. It was a really good year, though started with a tragedy. Then we had new elections. To my generation’s surprise we had very low turnout – around 40%. This has resulted in the victory of social democrats. They are supported by the socially disadvantaged class of people, those who have pensions and other help from the government. So social democrats have raised their pensions by 5 euro or so and they went to support them.

So they are back in power now. They have canceled reforms in health, education, culture that technocrats have started. And couple of weeks later we have received the news that they plan to pass this law that decriminalizes corruption if the sum of a bribe is less than $47 000. When we saw it on the news we thought that the publishers have gone mad.

«And the speaker, the minister of justice kept answering ‘Next question, please’. Half an hour later, despite all the logistics and late time, people were out in the streets»

It hasn’t been officially stated, it was not on the agenda of the meeting.  And then all of a sudden we’ve got the news that the law had been passed at some late meeting at 9 p.m. The news started at 10 p.m., for half an hour they were talking about budget and stuff, and in the end, they added ‘And by the way, we’ve passed this law’.  

We saw how shocked everyone was. Even the loyal press that usually asks some dumb questions to stop the really smart ones from asking was also trying to figure out the thing. And the speaker, the minister of justice kept answering ‘Next question, please’.

Half an hour later, despite all the logistics and late time, people were out in the streets.

Will your footage from protests eventually become the next documentary film?

Filming is my form of activism. I make this in the heat of the moment. It helps to attract more and more people to the protest. But I have never thought of it as cinema. I just use what I know and do best for the common good. But is the same as just standing there with the sign.

It might be the case that with my film Planeta Petrila I’ve actually contributed to saving the mine in Petrila. But this time I was the same participant as anyone else. I’m just bringing it to the spotlight.

Do you think that the protests were successful? Have people achieved the goal?

Technically – yes. The law is now banned. But the situation is tricky. This law has passed and received its number (13). It was banned by the other law, numbered 14. The latter was written inaccurately. On purpose, I suppose. So if anyone complains that the law #14 is inaccurate, it can be easily canceled and then the 13th is in the power again. So it’s still a possibility to process this law. Those guys in the cabinet aren’t stupid and they’ve just learned that they should be careful with us.

After the club fire, there have been just 30,000 protesters and the government resigned. Now there are 600,000 and no one is resigning. Protests have stopped for now. It’s been 14 days of them already; people were standing there even in a snowstorm. They simply need to rest now and get back to their jobs. But I think if the government makes something wrong just once soon, people will hit the streets again.

«Filming is my form of activism»

Have you ever felt that it’s useless then?

It is useless in a way. The minister of justice (the one who kept saying ‘Next question, please’) has resigned, but this is just a sacrifice to calm down the crowds. Liviu Dragnea, the head of social democrats, keeps saying that there is a misunderstanding and the law is harmless. 600,000 people were in the streets and he keeps saying that the government is right. There haven’t been so many people out there since the revolution, and he’s still saying that we are getting paid for the protests.  It seems useless at that point.

But the fact that so many people joined the protest brings me hope. A lot of people were helping the protesters. They were bringing tea, coffee shops were offering free drinks for people out there. A lot of people were coming from other cities to Bucharest on weekends. The have created Google Doc where they were offering free couches or the lift to Bucharest for those who were coming from other places. One of our actions was gifting flowers to gendarmerie (riot police). My friend who works in the flower shop called me and offered flowers for protest.

This was a spectacular mobilization of our people. We haven’t ever seen anything like that. I hope that all of those people will show up at the next elections.