THE DEAD NATION

THE DEAD NATION documents “Fragments of Parallel Lives” from the period of 1937 to 1946 in Romania. The film shows striking, detailed and often beautiful portraits of the simple rural population, captured by “Fotostudio Splendid” in the country’s southeast region. Parallel to these projections one hears diary entries from the Jewish Bucharest resident and doctor Emil Dorian, read by Radu Jude himself. In between, excerpts from radio broadcasts and nationalistic songs from the era allow one to begin to fathom the anti-Semitism that Dorian experiences first hand and through the reports of eyewitnesses.