10/06/2013 - The debut of British director Tom Wilson attempts to uncover an unsavory episode in Romanian history

One of the most talked-about entries in the Romanian Days section of the Transylvania International Film Festival, which ended this weekend, is without a doubt The Bucuresti Experiment from Bucharest-based British director Tom Wilson.

The film's star is Carmen Anton, a popular singer from the Communist era who's seen in extensive archive footage throughout but who sings no longer. In a documentary style, Wilson, who's a BBC radio correspondent and DJ in the Romanian capital and speaks some Romanian, follows her as she is given the opportunity to reconnect with Andrei Juvina, the man she used to date when she was in college but with whom she's lost touch.

From this simple premise, Wilson spins an ambitious story that uncovers some secrets in Romania's recent past, notably involving the Securitate secret police and their attempts to, in view of the 1989 revolution and toppling of Ceausescu they saw coming, use psychological engineering experiments in order to prepare citizens for the free market that would inevitably arrive in Romania.

Cobbling together different elements, the film tries to take on too much in one go - especially in its revealing closing minutes - and has a tendency to meander but at the same time it is hard to deny that what Wilson proposes is food for thought and an unusual way of trying to tackle recent Romanian history with cinematic means.

Shot entirely independently by Wilson's own TW Films on a budget of reportedly €250, the film was shown in Cluj-Napoca together with an equally low-budget documentary short film also directed by Wilson, Before the Fall, in which he tries to retrace a member of his family's visit to Romania years ago.