Acasă, My Home

What is a good life? And who holds the power to define this? The documentary Acasă, My Home asks existential questions like this, without any moral guidelines, leaving it up to us to make up our own positions. The camera's observing gaze makes the ugly beautiful and the beautiful ugly.

The film follows Gică and Niculina Enache, who for more than 20 years have lived with their nine children in Europe's largest urban river delta in the middle of Bucharest. Here, the children have grown up close to nature and received a, to put it mildly, free upbringing, although Gică is the family's undisputed patriarch. The kids have learned to fish, swim and hunt, and know all about the exceptionally rich bird and animal life in the delta. At the same time, the picturesque, wild upbringing has been at the expense of schooling: none of the nine kids can read or write.

When the authorities' plans to protect the river delta and turn it into a nature reserve are put into action, the Roma family no longer fits into the Văcăreşti Nature Park. Against their will, they receive assistance to move into an apartment in the city, and the children are put to school. Although the idyllic life inside the river delta has been far from perfect, moving turns into a big test both for the family as a unit and for the community around them.

Andrea Regine Meyer

Director

Radu Ciorniciuc is an investigating journalist and tv reporter. Acasă, My Home is his first feature length documentary. As an investigating journalist, Ciorniciuc has been interested in uncovering modern day slavery and has, amongst more, been working undercover in factories. Acasă, My Home has already received a number of awards, including the Special Jury Award for Cinematography at Sundance.

This film is part of