Filmul despre și pentru copii în cinemaul stalinist din România

While the ’50s represented a new decade of expressiveness in western cinema, along with new ideological approaches, the feature film in the European communist space was determined by the nature of the political totalitarian regimes and the specific phenomena of the “cultural revolution.” In totalitarianism, the relation between civitas/community and the feature film followed the ancient model of the rapport of the Greek city to the civic and ethical finality of the theatre. Under these circumstances, the film becomes the most vulnerable of arts. Cinema was confiscated and transformed into engaged art, with an essential role in building the paradigm of the “new man.” Although the ’50s meant the development of the technical-material modern background, the increase of film production and consumption of feature film, in Romanian cinema, the artistic references were few. The concern for film production of the prewar and interwar periods were drastically limited by the political class and the cultural ignorance of the politruks. The films Nufărul Roșu [The Red Water Lily] (1955), Mingea [The Ball] (1958), and A fost prietenul meu [He Was My Friend] (1963) followed the directions of the Stalinist ideology that lasted longer than in the USSR. Only Elisabeta Bostan overcame the limits imposed by the communist regime and the censorship of the era. Thus, her films still retain the unaltered charm of childhood.