“Camera obscura”: interview Gheorghe Preda

The documentary Camera obscura (directed by Gheorghe Preda) presents the phenomenon of the Romanian film clubs in the Communist period. The film clubs were financed by the Communist syndicates and were attached to the big factories, universities or culture houses, that ensures the film loving amateur people the access to the equipments and the substances that were necessary for the film developing, editing or sound processing.
Camera Obscura dedicates a lot of space to the Film Club CFR Timișoara that existed within the Regional Society of Railways. Though many of the films that were made by these film clubs were instructional films (about work protection, for instance), it was also here that film experiments which went beyond the imposed ideological line also found their place. The documentary contains a series of interviews with former members, as well as archive footage which explains the way these film clubs existed.
The AaRC team attended the premiere and had an interview with the director Gheorghe Preda, who spoke about the importance of this phenomenon and about the way the film clubs functioned.