Whether to see it again or to see it the first time, the audience gathered in large numbers in the screening room. "Morometii", as most people know, is based on the 1st book by novelist Marin Preda, and deals with the village world of the late 1930s. The protagonist, Ilie Moromete, battles with daily chores, rebellious children, a difficult household and taxes. Eventually, as his ungrateful sons flee with the family's horses and sheep, Moromete finds himself at the end of his straw. The presentation of this first UK screening was impeccable, except perhaps for the less felicitous translation, that often did not do justice to Preda's genius writing and the excellent script. The film was followed by a short Q&A with Mr Stere Gulea, the director of the movie, and Mr. Victor Rebengiuc, the chief protagonist.
They conveyed how the Communist propaganda of the so-called "archetypal Romanian peasant" distorted the film's message. The village of Ilie Moromete is now a lost world, but his struggles to cope with a difficult family and to make ends meet remain forever actual. Mr Gulea recalled how the Communists did not like the realism of the story, and the fact that Moromete was a real human being, rather than a stereotypical peasant. Mr Rebengiuc added that the Communists also resented the fact that the film (just as the book) showed peasants as better off than during their Communist period. In the 1930s, life was hard, but at least peasants felt free and were able to express what they believed; moreover, they had tracts of land that were later taken away from them by the forced collectivisation of the 1950s.
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