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ROWAN UNIVERSITY- 

As democracy faces threats across the globe and the media landscape feels more fractured than in any other period in history, people have been looking to the figures of the recent past to answer some of the questions of how to handle these tumultuous times. 

In her own reflections on this topic, Diana Nicolae, a radio, television, and film professor at Rowan University, created a documentary about a dissident Romanian poet, well known in her home country, but not so widely recognized in the United States. 

Nicolae first got the idea to make “Between Silence and Sin,” a film about the life and history of poet Ana Blandiana, the pen name for Otilia Coman, three and a half years ago. 

Having originally met Blandiana for another project at the beginning of her documentary career and kept in touch throughout the years, Nicolae was reading some of Blandiana’s republished works when she decided to begin work on the film with the help of her husband and fellow filmmaker Matt Jozwiakowski. 

“When I read in the press that her dissent was questioned, you know how things happen. Here as well, to a certain extent, with certain parts of the press that’s attacking the other… Her dissent was not celebrated unanimously, and there were still voices talking against her and belittling her. And I thought, ‘You know what, it’s time. It’s time to make a film about that,” said Nicolae. 

Besides her work as a poet who battled censorship and spread messages against Romania’s Communist dictatorship in the mid-twentieth century, Blandiana has also been majorly credited with influencing Romanian democracy in the years following the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall.

Such work included the founding of the Memorial to the Victims of Communism and being a founding member and leader of the Civic Alliance Foundation, one organization that made Romanian membership in the European Union and NATO much easier during the country’s transitional period.

“Romania is part of the European Union with the help of Ana Blandiana, and the resources… the people that she pulled and gathered around her. She was significant in the role that she played after the 1989 revolution… to the democratic changes in Romania, established the truth and, sort of reopened the archive… creating archives, oral histories, and talking to people who experienced that regime… helping to sort of rewrite a more truthful history,” said Nicolae. 

After coming to the conclusion that a film of Blandiana’s life would be more relevant now than ever before, Nicolae reached out to Blandiana for her permission to begin filming, which Blandiana obliged. 

Filming began in the summer of 2021, with some difficulties in scheduling starting early on. 

“I was following her around for hours and hours in Romania. And living here and working at the university, I cannot just leave on a whim like that… So I have to go there in summer and whenever, she has a window of opportunity, because she is a very busy woman. Outside of writing, she’s also invited to all kinds of events, literary events, historical events…, and speeches to students. So she’s sought after, she’s beloved. So she’s not available all the time,” said Nicolae. 

The movie uses archival footage, private recordings, sit-down interviews with Blandiana herself, historical public radio and television appearances, the poet’s written works, and footage of Blandiana going about her daily life to tell the full story of who Blandiana is, who she was and how her life impacted Romania on a broader scale. 

Blandiana, while being involved in the creation of the film due to the live, sit-down interviews done with her, was not involved in the editorial process of the film overall. Having dealt with censorship against her own work, she did not want to interfere in how the film was edited, how it portrayed her, or how her poetry was used to tell the story. 

Blandiana saw the film for the first time at the premiere with the rest of the audience. 

Most of the funds for the film came out of Nicolae’s own pocket, though some of the rights to use the archival images and footage were purchased using money from one of Rowan University’s funds. 

Currently, the film is making its way through the film festival circuit, first premiering at the Krakow Film Festival in Poland. 

“My husband, being half Polish, it’s sort of like… sort of worked out because we sent it there, but we had no idea that it was actually going to premiere there. We thought it was going to premiere first in Romania, but it premiered there first, and the author came to the premiere of the film,” said Nicolae. 

The film will continue to make rounds around film festivals around the world, though the current strategy for the documentary is to mostly enter Romanian festivals, so Blandiana and her story isn’t completely unknown to the audiences present, like the Transilvania International Film Festival (TIFF). 

The auditorium playing “Between Silence and Sin” at TIFF was filled with about 150 people, beyond Nicolae’s expectations for the documentary’s possible success.

“You’re not the only film that’s being presented… so the audience has a choice. But… I had filled auditoriums with people, which I did not, I mean, it was beyond belief… every time discussions after that were fairly interesting and unexpected, to be honest. And people came out after the screening, because after you’re done with the screening in that cinema there is another film, so you have a very limited amount of time to talk to the public… people follow me outside of the screening room, outside of the cinema, and we continue conversations,” said Nicolae. 

Viewings at universities around the world are also being planned. Nicolae is interested in doing a screening at Rowan University, her place of employment, though there are no set plans for a screening in the near future just yet.

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