Generation Next: Hano Hofer, Romanian filmmaker

Documentary by Karin Wells and David Gutnick

Scene from Tales from the Golden Age, a film by Hano Hofer

This is a text transcript from the CBC Radio Sunday Edition documentary "Generation Next: Young Minds, Bodies and Souls after Communism. From Ukraine, Romania, the Czech Republic and Hungary"

Hano Hofer is a Romanian filmmaker and musician. He is one of five Romanian directors who participated in the making of Tales from the Golden Age, a feature-length film that was released in the autumn of 2009. It is a dark comedy that looks at what the film's directors call 'Legends' of Nicholae Ceausescu's Romanian dictatorship.
David Gutnick met with Hano Hofer at a café in a Bucharest museum.

From 1947 to 1989 members of the Romanian secret police—the Securitate—seemed to be peeking around every corner. No one knew who to trust, but what they did know was that they could not trust their own government. It was also a time of absurdity, when officials tied fresh fruit to trees and painted dirty birds white to impress visiting communist dignitaries. And when hungry neighbours smuggled live pigs into their apartments, young Romanians do not know much about those years, they are barely touched on in school.

Transcript

After 1989, after the revolution it was too early to make a film about communism. It was too personal, too emotional. Now is the right time to do something about communism.

The film is not about communism, it is about the stories, about the relationships, it is about the people who lived under communism.

When I talk to children they tell me that it is not possible, you are inventing it, you are making it up, and I say no, it is true, I know it sounds like I am making it up but I don't make it up. It is for real. I can tell you that you will not believe if I tell it to you. (Laugh)

It is one of my favourite stories.

There was a time in the eighties when I was already 18 or 20 years old the oil bottles and the beer bottles had the same shape and so some beer bottles went to the oil factory and some oil bottles went to the beer factory and so we went to a pub to buy a beer and the beer tasted like oil. Sounds like it is made up but it is not. Actually I still feel like I am a victim of communism because I am very lazy, after I finished high school all I did in five years of remaining communism was hang around and wait for something to happen.

It is the time to say goodbye to communism, now after 20 years anniversary, it is time to say goodbye but there are a lot of open questions in Romania still. We had this bloody revolution here. Ceausescu was shot, there were thousands of dead, and still it is not very clear who shot who, there are still trials going on, so twenty years after it is not over yet.

Of course there is a biological end to all this. I mean people who worked with the Securitate must be quite old right now so they will disappear. And those people who are ten or eleven years old right now will be the first ones not to know about them. All the others are you know branded. Marked.

About the radio documentary

Stone cold: statue of Communist leader Vladimir Lenin looks into a democratic future for Ukraine. (CBC/Karin Wells)

On Nov. 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall was smashed. That marked the beginning of the end of a dream — for communists. For many people who lived under Soviet domination, it signaled the end of a nightmare.

Almost overnight, capitalism bloomed. Whole economies were redesigned. Free speech flourished. Unemployment soared. So did interest in organized religion. Billionaires popped up. Social safety nets were shredded. Neighbours found out who had been spying on whom. Real elections were held. Here was democracy, or something like it.

Now, from the ashes of the old — still warm, still combustible — the young are building new worlds in Eastern Europe. Theirs is the first post-Soviet generation. They carry the weight of the past, its secrets and lies. And like the young everywhere, they dream about a different future.

This is the third of three CBC Radio Sunday Edition documentaries that bring us the sounds, experiences, ideas and dreams of a special generation in a series called "Generation Next: Young Minds, Bodies and Souls after Communism, from Ukraine, Romania, the Czech Republic and Hungary" produced by Karin Wells and David Gutnick.

Listen to the CBC Radio Sunday Edition documentary (Runs 51:06) | AUDIO