A documentary about Romania

by Elke Groen & Ina Ivanceanu

Bunica lives in Romania.
Bunica is 89-year-old Ana Ionescu, the grandmother of one of the film's directors. The interesting story of her life centres around a century full of changes and upheavals. Her experiences, her memories and her social networks lead the viewer to other people, other lives, other realities. In the film Bunica they tell their stories, describe their dreams and look into the future.

How Ceaucescu's executor became vice prime minister overnight, why the scrap iron collectors in the streets of Bucharest are angry, what took a young Romanian to Alaska, whether or not politics and justice are compatible and what the old lady thinks about it all: that is what Bunica is about.

Bunica is a trip through the Romania of yesterday and today - a trip through social and political landscapes full of contradictions, from the pulsating capital city of Bucharest to the rural periphery. Supported by archive material, the film portrays, from a personal point of view, a country that is still looking for its place in Europe 15 years after the revolution.