Us against Us<\/em> directed by Andra Tarara won the best film award in
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The film, which is Andra Tarara’s debut feature film,
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Us against Us<\/em> was first screened last year at the International Documentary
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The idea for the film was born while Andra Tarara was doing
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That’s how I came across this idea, by rummaging through
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In her documentary Us against Us<\/em>, Andra Tarara
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The illness is very present in the film because of my
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By telling an intimate story, the documentary Us
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A talk with director Andra Tarara about her award-winning film, which explores mental health and father-daughter relationship.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":135,"featured_media":163479,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44685],"tags":[30281,29241],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-163478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-of-culture","tag-astra","tag-film"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\nthe Romania section of the 28th edition of Astra Film Festival, held
\nat the beginning of September. The jury praised the film for its touching and
\nhonest exploration of the relationship between the director and her father and
\nthe authentic dialogue about the illness that affected both of their lives. The
\njury also noted the collaboration between two film makers belonging to
\ndifferent generations and how they both found a common language through cinema.
\n<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
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\nis made up of a series of dialogues about the relationship between father and daughter,
\nboth of whom share the same mental health problem, as well as passion for
\ncinema. Their dialogue touches on subjects such as the inability to
\ncommunicate, education, personal development and mental health. The protagonists
\ntell their own stories, in fact their views on the same events, both through words
\nand with the help of the camera. <\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
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\nFilm Festival in Jihlava, in the Czech Republic, and was also shown in
\nBucharest last autumn at a local retrospective of the 2020 Cannes Film Festival.
\nThis summer, it was shown at various other festivals, including the Moldova
\nFilm Festival and the DOKer Moscow International Documentary Film Festival,
\nCiao Cinema! Festival in Timi\u0219oara and the Romanian section of the Transylvania
\nFilm Festival in Cluj Napoca. <\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
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\nresearch for a previous production called Death in My Family<\/em>, and during
\nwhich she found a number of video tapes containing footage shot by her dad, Ion
\nTarara. She explains:<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
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\nthe family archive. Finding these VHS tapes, I realised that what my dad did
\nwas to create a record of our family life. There’s a lot of footage of me and
\nthe main topic that transpires from these tapes is our relationship. I thought
\nit would be interesting to explore this further and how expressing himself
\nthrough cinema is important for my dad and how I inherited this passion from
\nhim. The film began as an exercise in connecting with each other and exploring
\nour relationship through film. The story is getting more complex because dad used
\nto be very passionate about cinema and had the opportunity to work in cinema
\nbut was unfortunately unable to continue working because he lacked the
\nresources and his parents didn’t agree with it. I, on the other hand, had total
\nsupport, as a form of compensation perhaps, on the part of my dad for his inability
\nto pursue his own passion. So, the stories that went into this film already
\nexisted in my family and dad was willing to talk about them.<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
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\nsays she also wanted to give a voice to people with mental health issues who
\nare stigmatised by society because of that and to discuss an illness that is not
\nvery often spoken about. Andra Tarara:<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
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\ndad. He really wanted to tell his story and, in a way, for him this film is about
\nmaking his story heard so as to help others who are going through the same
\nthing. The film was born in the end out of this negotiation, I had my agenda,
\nmy intention to make a certain kind of film, and he wanted to tell his story. I
\ntold him how I saw the film, but he prepared well before the shooting started,
\nmade plans, thought about what he was going to say. So, although I was the
\nauthor, I sometimes felt that things were getting out of my control and that at
\ntimes my reactions in the film were a bit aggressive. This is how Us against
\nUs was born, out of the tension between these two perspectives, mine and
\nhis, between these two agendas, and the way in which each of us experienced, individually
\nand together, the same situation and how we summed it up into words. My dad
\nspeaks a lot about the stigma he felt, how people stigmatise those who are sick
\nand because they don’t know other people in that situation.<\/p>\n
\n
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\n
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\nagainst Us<\/em> in fact starts a much-needed conversation about mental health,
\nabout problems we often don’t recognise or identify on time, about how we can
\nrelate with our loved ones who are diagnosed with mental health issues and
\nabout the existence or lack of support networks. We would like to help those
\nwho see the film approach such subjects easier, both through the personal
\nexperience of Andra and her father and with the support of a team of psychologists
\nand psychiatrists who joined us in the distribution stage of the film, said producer
\nAnda Ionescu from Tangaj Production.<\/p>\n