The “collective” documentary, directed by Alexander Nanau, is the winner of the LUX 2021 public award, the president of the European Parliament, David Sassoli, announced on Wednesday in the plenary session in Strasbourg.
The films “Another Round” by Thomas Vinterberg and “Corpus Christi” by Jan Komasa were also nominated.
“colectiv”, a chronicle of the first year after the tragedy in the Bucharest club Colectiv, became this year the first Romanian film to be nominated for the Oscars. It competed in two categories, “Best International Feature Film” and “Best Documentary Feature Film”, but did not win any trophies.
Produced by Nanau and Bianca Oana, “colectiv” (Romania – Luxembourg) was designated the European documentary of the last year, at the 33rd edition of the European Film Academy awards, which took place in December.
It is an observational documentary that tells the story of the first year after the fire in the Bucharest club Colectiv, which led to the death of 64 people. The film follows authorities and journalists, seeking to expose the truth.
The documentary, an HBO Europe production written by Alexander Nanau and Antoaneta Opriş, premiered at the 2019 Venice Film Festival, out of competition. Among other things, it was designated by the National Society of Film Critics in the USA as the best film in a foreign language, and the National Board of Review included it in the top 5 of the best international films.
Alexander Nanau, 41-year-old cinematographer and screenwriter, directed four feature-length documentaries – “Peter Zadek inszeniert Peer Gynt” (2006), “The World as Seen by Ion B.” (2009), “Toto and his sisters” (2014) and “colectiv” (2019). Born in Bucharest, on May 18, 1979, he studied film at the DFFB in Berlin and, in 2007, received a scholarship to the Academy of Arts in the German capital.
