“collective“, the 2019 documentary film signed by Alexander Nanau addresses a serious topic. In the fire in the Bucharest nightclub ‘Colectiv’ which took place on October 30, 2015, 27 young people died. In the months that followed, another 37 of the wounded with severe burns died in hospitals in Romania and abroad. The deaths of many of them could have been avoided, as they were caused by the lack of capacity, hygiene and proper treatment conditions in hospitals, and by delays in transporting the wounded abroad. The scandal and the popular protests led to the fall of the ruling Social Democratic government and its replacement with a government made up mostly of technocrats, which led Romania for a year, until the parliamentary elections in December 2016. The filming team started from the press conferences after the fire and focused on two main issues: the investigation and the revelations of the journalists from ‘Gazeta Sporturilor’ led by Cătălin Tolontan which brought to the public’s attention serious details of incompetence and corruption in the hospitals system and with the providers of medical materials, and the work of the Minister of Health in the technocratic government and his team, who during their time in power tried to take a series of measures to eradicate corruption at all levels of the medical system. Politics being what it is, the 2016 elections brought the Social Democrats back to power.
The investigative reporting techniques are used professionally, the editing is alert and explains well the main moments of a tragedy that changed the Romanian political landscape for a while. The role of the combative media is excellently emphasized. I assume that for some of the foreign spectators some details will remain unclear. The fact that the investigation team belongs to a sports newspaper says something about the situation of the Romanian press. The technocratic minister of health in the film, Vlad Voiculescu, has since entered politics and is running today for the position of mayor of Bucharest. Reporters and politicians in the film are permanently watching television stations that not only inform but especially comment with visible political overtones. Can documentaries such as “collective” be an alternative to independent investigative journalism? Accompanying the teams of journalists and advisers to the ministers for 14 months, Alexander Nanau and his colleagues help us to get to know the main protagonists, journalists and politicians. In most cases, they manage to make the cameras unbiased and invisible. The voices of the victims are represented by the grieving parents and the young Tedy Ursuleanu, seriously injured in the fire, who will bear the sequels of her wounds for all her life.
The film, which premiered a year ago at the Venice Film Festival and has since participated in other prestigious festivals such as Toronto and Sundance, received the award for best foreign production at DOCAVIV. I am not surprised by the international resonance of the film, because the problems of medical systems, including lack of equipment and capacity, as well as deeper such as corruption and political interests are increasingly evident in many countries, including the crisis caused by the COVID pandemic. 19. Starting from the Romanian realities, “collective” manages to tell a story with universal validity. The story being well told, the impact is remarkable.