The documentary I Am What I Learned to Be / Sunt ceea ce am învățat să fiu intends to raise awareness on the importance of education in all the social backgrounds, in order to offer a chance to a normal life to any child in Romania. In our country going to school represents a privilege, which sometimes is impossible to achieve. The children from underprivileged social communities don`t have access to good quality education. I`ve been working with children foundations for many years, especially with Ovidiu Ro, and in our struggle to raise funds, I realized how important it is to force the interlocutor make an imagination exercise: how a child with no education will be during his teenage years and what kind of an adult person he will become. And so, I decided to shoot interviews of different age groups – 4-6 years old, 10-14 years old and over 20. A few years later I took the advice to go back to them, after 7 years and to talk to them again” the director Adela Vrînceanu-Celebidachi explains about the idea of making this documentary.
The documentary I Am What I Learned to Be makes a parallel between the children who have the chance to receive education and the children who don`t have it and it shows how they evolve – or not – over the years, representing a warning signal for the Romanian society and the consequences of ignoring the problems we face. The film brings forth the consequences of taking responsibility regarding the children with no opportunities, the lack of fully understanding the cause-effect of poverty that thousands of children from Romania suffer from, and the education we offer our children and the lowering of the level of compassion and sensitivity towards those around us. Each child in the documentary was filmed at a 7 years distance, in order to demonstrate how education in the underprivileged communities can change destinies for the better and how the position of the children who have a chance to education changes under the influence of the society they live in, of their friends and how their response to the cases of some poor children diminishes. I Am What I Learned to Be is directed by Adela Vrînceanu-Celebidachi, in collaboration with Liviu Stanciu and it will be broadcast on Kanal D, on June 24, 2018, starting with 15:30.
The documentary was the winner of the 16th edition of the International Cult Film in Calcutta (India) and it received the Award of Recognition: Documentary Feature at the Accolade Global Film Competition, which took place in May 2018.
The film financers were: OMD, Phd MEDIA, McCANN Erickson, Hochland, Sensiblu, Carrefour, Boiron, Hornbach, Ferratum, Borsec, Univer, Emag.
I`ve been working with children foundations for many years, especially with Ovidiu Ro, and in our struggle to raise funds, I realized how important it is to force the interlocutor make an imagination exercise: how a child with no education will be during his teenage years and what kind of an adult person he will become. And so, I decided to shoot interviews of different age groups – 4-6 years old, 10-14 years old and over 20. A few years later I took the advice to go back to them, after 7 years and to talk to them again” the director Adela Vrînceanu-Celebidachi explains about the idea of making this documentary.
