Impact
The visual methods I used to gather empirical data have also enabled me to engage into a fruitful dialogue with the local community about the care and maintenance of the housing stock inherited from the socialist period. The premiere of The Block took place in its place of genesis, with a screening in Piatra-Neamț’s main square, attended by the inhabitants and the rest of the local community. The protagonist of the film, Mr. Bud, was interviewed by the organisers of the festival Filmul de Piatra and shared his concerns and his efforts.
Since its completion, the documentary has been screened at many film festivals internationally and has received the Best Documentary award at Ficarq, the Architecture& Film Festival in Spain. These screenings have provided me an invaluable opportunity to expand the reach of my research to other inhabitants of Piatra-Neamț and other Romanian cities, to fellow researchers (in The Netherlands, Germany, Brazil, Japan, the UK), to architects and filmmakers (South Africa, Spain), to community activists in Moldova.
Following each film screening, the ensuing conversations have been inspiring, reiterating the importance of a study of such a home as a negotiated space between the inhabitants and the state [visit the Screenings page for a comprehensive list]. More widely in Romania, the film started a much-needed conversation about living spaces, achieving a wide presence in the media, through newspaper and radio interviews.
Given that the documentary is edited in the style of observational cinema, without any commentary guiding the viewer, I felt the need to write a complementary piece which would fill some of the gaps uncovered by the film. Hence, I wrote Viața în H2B, an in-depth narrative journalism piece about Mr. Bud’s efforts in the H2B in the non-fiction journal Decât o Revistă, which has a wide circulation throughout Romania. Because it is written in Romanian, it offered the research participants themselves an occasion to access my core findings and reflections.
My ethnographic monograph, The Block: An Anthropology of Architectural Transformation, out with UCL Press in October 2024, will accompany the film and will hopefully become an valuable Open Access resource for scholars, architectural professionals and students.
Please visit the Documentary section for synopsis, trailer, distribution and screenings.