DIE BRÜCKE ÜBER DIE THEISS (PODUL PESTE TISA)

"I found a dwarf at the construction site the other day. I have to show him to you. He has no head. He is just like this construction site. It also has no head."

Bridges are built to connect people, unless it is forbidden to cross them. The towns of Sighet in Romania and Ukrainian Slatina are separated by the river Tisza. A recently rebuilt bridge is supposed to not only reunite the two towns but also bring back together friends and relatives who have been divided throughout history by various political decisions. The former bridge was destroyed by German troops in 1944. After WWII, the border was closed. For 50 years there was nothing but silence between the inhabitants of Romanian Sighet and the city of Slatina, which then belonged to the Soviet Union.

Podul Peste Tisa documents the long, often absurd and eventually vain struggle of the local inhabitants and politicians to reconnect the two communities.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the independence of the Ukraine, plans were made to renovate the historical bridge. After three years of somewhat chaotic construction work, the new bridge finally got made thanks to EU and Romanian funds. And yet still nobody is allowed to cross it since future member Romania has to fulfil the EU's high border crossing security standards. So relatives and friends still communicate by shouting across the Tisza.

"I thought that my film was going to have a happy end; that we would film how the bridge gets rebuilt and how it finally connects the two towns after such a long time. But instead we documented the sad fact that Sighet and Slatina are still on the forgotten edge of the European Union." (Ileana Stanculescu)

Awards: First Appearance Award, IDFA Amsterdam 2004