Reflections on Romania

A while ago I made a list of things I have done in the service of filmmaking. Add being stranded in Romania by a Icelandic volcano to that list. Last week I traveled to Bucharest to attend the NexT International Film Festival to represent AUS.LAUF.

I have been to Romania before, and it became one of my favorite places to which I have traveled. This trip only further cemented my opinion. Rather than wax poetic about why like like Romania so much, here are a random list of words that I associate with the country and more specifically, Bucharest:

Soup, books, cubical, chaotic, humor, antique, dogs, deserted, vibrant, cheap booze, 35mm, cables, serpentine, hopeful, history, meat, enigmatic, individual, philosophy, inviting, good coffee...
The NexT festival was great. Everyone involved was very kind and everything was well organized. It was very interesting to see AUS.LAUF with a big audience for the first time. The response was quite good. I really enjoyed meeting the all of the people involved. Romania has an excellent growing film community.

After a few days in Romania I heard that I would be prevented from flying home by a volcano. Also, on the same day, someone dyed all of the fountains blood-red. If a plague of frogs had come by, I would have thought it was the apocalypse. I traveled home by train instead.