director Isabela Tent he met Alice in his first year of college, when he had to make a portrait film for his directing exam. It attracted the 16-year-old girl, shy, but with a great desire to find her place in the world and decided to document her journey. It was originally a short film for school, but today “Alice On & Off” is a documentary that has already won several awards at TIFF and Astra Film Festival.
The feature film tells the story of a girl deprived of love in her childhood, who marries Dorian, aged 50, at 16. Transgenerational trauma takes its toll on their family life, and Alice struggles with addiction while forced to resort to vice ochat to ensure the family’s livelihood.
“We discovered that there are more and more people open to dialogue on the topic of transgenerational trauma, and we were very happy when some of the people who watched it wrote to us that Alice’s story stayed with them for many days after projection”.
“Alice On & Off” stays with you for days after watching. The director begins it with a question – “When you come from a dark past, do you have a chance to come out into the light?”, which she tried to find an answer to during the 10 years in which she filmed Alice, Dorian and the son their Aristo. The film hits theaters on November 22 and is Isabela Tent’s directorial debut.
Highlights from your training
My first encounter with film was in 11th grade when I attended TIFF’s Let’s go digital teen film workshop that I had heard about from a teacher. Before attending that workshop my future plans were the opposite, namely that I wanted to become a neurosurgeon. The energy of the festival and the things I experienced during the workshop seemed fascinating but not convincing enough to change my decision. The idea of change appeared when, at the end of the workshop, Sorin Botoșeneanu, trainer of the workshop, asked me the question: – Don’t you want to go into film directing as well? I didn’t answer at the moment, but in the fall of that year I was leaving alone for the first time to Bucharest to inquire about the preparation courses for UNATC. I didn’t enter college from the first time, I didn’t have enough training. I attended the journalism faculty for one year and the following year I re-applied to UNATC and was admitted.
The first significant moment in my professional life was the meeting with Sorin Botoșeneanu (at that time, professor of photography and dean of the Faculty of Film at UNATC), in the workshop mentioned above. The conversations and advice given throughout college (and beyond) will stay with me for a long time to come. Another important chapter is when we succeeded, after four attempts, in obtaining funding from the CNC for Alice On&Off. Then I understood that things don’t happen when you want them to, but when they need to happen. In addition, working as a second director for various national and international productions gave me the chance to have a dialogue with directors and producers who changed my perspective on many points of view.
How did you come up with the idea to document your lifeAlice’s
I met Alice when in the first year of college, for the directing exam, we had to do a visual exercise, a portrait-type “video”. The fashion was to make a film about a personality. I didn’t know anyone else in Bucharest, so I asked my colleagues. One of them (who remained in the team until the end of the project) introduced me to Dorian. I met Alice when I first arrived at Dorian’s house. Shy but with a fierce desire in her eyes to succeed in finding her place in the world, she made me approach her as well.
It all started with an attraction of mine to her destiny, which I was not able to decipher until many years later. The idea to document her journey was born during the observation process when I realized that there are many things we have in common. The difficult childhood, the emotional baggage we received from our parents and grandparents and how it rubbed off on our decisions, were the things that formed the basis of my desire to accompany Alice for so long. Our relationship developed organically and was based on mutual trust. There was no convincing work for certain moments, everything came from an organicity and a mutual respect for the things we were going through together.
The team you worked with
The core team consisted of two people: me together with my college colleague and friend, Petre Osman, who was the project’s sound engineer. There was no room or need for a larger film crew. Next to me is Irina Malcea, without whom many things would not have happened, and without whom I would not have had the fabulous meeting with Letitia Stefănescu, the editor of the film.
Stages of creation
I worked for 10 years, with periods of, as the title says, on&off. The idea of a film was born in 2014 when I met Alice and her family. It took a more concrete form when the short film I made for college started to be seen by people and it also got in front of the producer Irina Malcea, who has been my support since 2017.
There was some form of script, but it’s complicated to follow it completely. I didn’t have a clear recipe that I followed. I have been gathering material for a long time. The editing period and the last part of the filming also corresponded to the period in which I began to realize certain things on a personal level. This is how we managed to bring the topic of transgenerational trauma to the fore.
The perspective you wanted to show the audience
At first it was instinct that pushed me to keep researching. I was too young to realize that what kept me close was the awareness of the transgenerational traumas I was dealing with. It took me many years to find the courage to start looking inside myself and realize how much I have in common with Alice. What I wanted to emerge from this documentary is that behind such a man, who deserves to be judged in the first instance, lies the pain, uncertainty and helplessness of several generations, things terribly difficult to manage for a man who still has the desire to do better for his offspring.
How did you take care of Alice during filming?
I believe that if the viewer allows himself to see beyond appearances, he can observe the respect and gentleness that have been cornerstones in my relationship both with Alice and with the other protagonists throughout the 10 years.
Alice’s world as you saw it in the creation process
Her entire process of discovery was revelatory for working with myself. Observing his courage to make painful discoveries, I also pushed myself to look inside myself and start asking myself uncomfortable questions.
The moments that moved you the most
The most touching moment is the sequence in which Aristo, Alice’s son, during a scandal between his parents, explains to me how he understands things. From the perspective of the adult who covered up his childhood traumas, I was trying to explain to him that it’s okay and that nothing is happening, the reaction he had reminded me of me as a child, the me that I had buried in life as an adult, because of patterns, fear, helplessness.
How the film was received in Romania
Although I started with fears about the audience’s reception of the story, the surprise was an extremely pleasant one. We found that there are more and more people open to having a dialogue on the topic of transgenerational trauma, and we were very happy when some of the people who watched it wrote to us that Alice’s story stayed with them for many days after projection.
The answer to the question you start the documentary with
I think there is a chance for people with transgenerational trauma to have different lives. I don’t think it’s possible to discuss a completely different life, I think a number of generations need to pass, but certainly by confronting the circle of traumas you take important steps towards change.
How did making the documentary in captivity help you?toria is personalahi professională
It helped me find the courage to look within myself, to find answers to difficult questions and to start accepting myself as I am. To start being good to myself.
Source: www.iqads.ro
