Podul de Flori

(The Flower Bridge)
by Thomas Ciulei
87’, Romania, 2008

Costica cares for his three children in Acui, a small village in Moldavia. His wife left  for Italy three years ago in search of work and has not returned home since. For a man like Costica, it is difficult to raise three children alone and at the same time run his farm. His is not the only family in this situation. Nearly half of the population of this country has a relative who lives far away, who has emigrated to western Europe in search of a job. This documentary, that mixes narration and fiction, creates a kind of stage on which the personages interpret themselves and show us a facet of this recent wave of emigration that is rarely recounted, that of those who remain at home.

Thomas Ciulei
Born in Bucarest in 1965, in 1979 he moved to the U.S. where he studied photography at the School of Visual Arts in New York. Subsequently, he specialized in documentary film at the Münich Film School where he later became a teacher. He now works as a director and producer of documentaries.