Radu Jude, about "Aferim!": We could have just as well done it as a colour or sepia film

I believe that this film would have functioned pretty much of the same manner if we did it as a colour or sepia film, instead of making it black&white, film director Radu Jude said after the first premiere dedicated to the critics and media of his "Aferim!" film, for which he received the Silver Bear for Best Director at the Berlin Film Festival.

Photo credit: (c) SORIN LUPSA / AGERPRES PHOTO

He also specified on Tuesday evening that the basic intention of those who made this film was "to send a message to the spectators that they were just watching a movie, to be questioned as such, and that they were supposed to try answering a few questions in relation to it, instead of just taking everything as granted, as absolute truth."

He also wished, through making the film black&white, to pay homage to the classic western genre, "since the story had a similar structure."

Asked wherefrom he took the inspiration for the scenario, Radu Jude explained that everything started from the idea of speaking about the past in a film and then, after many transformations, he ended by making "Aferim!"

"First of all, I felt this desire to speak about the past in a film, while still linking it to the present, of course, and to ask this: 'How can we make visible the traces of the past and how can we trace their origin,' and then, slowly, since both I and Florin Lazarescu (co-play-writer) started from something completely different (...) we've slowly come to something else, and then again something else, until we ended up by making this film," Radu Jude said.

In her turn, producer Ada Solomon said that, although in the beginning she "strongly" opposed the idea of making this film, after seeing a series of pictures that were made during...