directed by Alexander Nanau, documentary, 60 min, eng subtitles
written by Alexander Nanau
with Ion Bârlădeanu
Ion Bârlădeanu is a 62 year old homeless man. He sleeps on a filthy mattress at the end of the garbage chute of a bloc on Calea Moșilor, in exchange for sorting the garbage of the landlords. In "his home", Ion recovers what falls next to his mattress, this way he ends up reading all the books, magazines and newspapers that the others get rid of. When he was young, Ion dreamed of becoming a film director. In the 70's he started to create collages that he refers to as "my films", but this is a secret he only shares with people intelligent enough to understand and appreciate his works. He doesn't care about getting rich, he only wants a simple bicycle. Dan Popescu is a young gallery owner who hears about Ion Bârlădeanu by chance and decides to visit him. He is overwhelmed by more than 800 collages, made by the homeless artist between the '70s and the '90s. Those were times when such art manifestations were forbidden and totally inaccessible to Romanians. Ironically, this self-taught man is convinced that he invented collage, since he has never seen this art form before.
Awards:
International Emmy Awards 2010 (International Award for Arts Programming)
Romanian National Film Award GOPO 2010 (Best Documentary)
Docufest 2010 Kosovo (Best Balkan Documentary)