Adrian Sitaru, who started off as a low-budget filmmaker and built up an independent artistic trajectory parallel to the Romanian New Wave, yet without fully aligning with its commonly recognised characteristics, has slowly but steadily developed a style of his own, telling stories in which nothing turns out to be what it seemed at the beginning. Such was the case with his last two films – the incest drama Illegitimate [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Tudor Aaron Istodor
scheda film] – and in Blindsight, the pattern repeats itself, blending family dynamics with topical issues. The film premiered in the Rebels With a Cause Competition (a strand for risky experiments) of the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, where it received the section’s Best Director Award (see the news).

Blindsight’s experimental edge lies in its reality TV-like visual aesthetics: the entire work unfolds as if captured through amateur footage, with a blinking, shaky camera – an unpretentious shoot seemingly conducted by multiple participants, though primarily filtered through the gaze of Laura (Ioana Flora), who remains mostly off-screen. The narrative is also punctuated by 8 mm home videos, whether genuine or fabricated, further blurring the line between document and invention.

It all begins with footage showing a girl at her grandmother’s birthday party, and later, the domestic setting shifts, supposedly to the present, where, gathered around a table amid greenery, а family and their friends discuss an upcoming journey to Turkey for the eye surgery that young Andrei (Filip Cioc) must undergo. In the next episode, the gang, including the apathetic Laura, walks along the coast to a boat rocking on the water and sets out to sea. As they struggle to bear the weight and argue over who should jump out to lighten the load – or whether to throw the dog overboard – they suddenly discover a hidden Ukrainian refugee without papers in the hold, with whom only Laura, who speaks Serbian, is able to communicate. Things get lost in translation, and amidst arguments over passports with border guards, the little heterogeneous group, distracting themselves with booze and occasional flirtations, opts for unverified, roundabout routes in order to reach their cherished destination – one that gradually loses definition along the way. Shortly before the end, the threads of their surreal world begin to unravel somewhat, with nods back to the opening shots, revealing old traumas of irreparable loss tangled in repression and shaken by amnesia-stricken memory. It turns out not only that nothing is as it first seemed, but also that it is uncertain what actually happened and what did not; what is true and what has been fabricated by a troubled imagination or by manipulated audiovisuals.

In his attempt to recreate the distorted mental state of a distressed mind, while also implying tech interference by merging camera lenses with the characters’ gazes and projecting a freestyle selection of images, Sitaru, together with his inventive DoP, Adrian Silișteanu, who plays a key role here, has created a puzzling piece of cinema that struggles to fully deliver its intended meaning. Is the road movie at the centre of the film a case of déjà vu or an illusion? Is Laura travelling through her own scarred memory, or is it all a construct of a computer program, as the director’s statement suggests? Should it really be necessary to read that statement in order to grasp what the auteur might mean? The line between the real and the virtual in Blindsight seems to be blurred not only for the viewers but, perhaps, for its creators as well.

Blindsight was produced by Romania’s Domestic Film and Tangaj Production, in co-production with 4 Proof Film, Avanpost and Turkey’s Vigo Film.