Our School: Portrait of a lost generation
Published on
Presented as a special screening at the Transylvania International Film Festival (TIFF), after screening at Tribeca in April, the documentary Our School certainly hit close to home.
Set in the Transylvanian town of Targu Lapus, the nonfiction film directed by Mona Nicoara and co-directed by Miruna Coca-Cozma follows three children from the Roma-dominated Dileu neighbourhood, far from the centre, who are asked to start attending school in the centre as part of a European plan to stop Roma children from being segregated in Romanian schools.
At the start of the film, which began shooting in 2006 and continued through this year, the protagonists are eight-year-old Alin, a mischievous little boy; rotund 12-year-old Beni and pretty 16-year-old Dana, a cow herder. As the story progresses, they grow older but not necessarily, despite going to school, much wiser.
read the article on www.cineuropa.org