In 1967, Pier Paolo Pasolini traveled to Romania in search of a primordial, archaic setting for Oedipus Rex. As much as it was a country in the midst of industrialization, Romania still offered glimpses of the ancient, wild world that Pasolini wanted to portray. The director left with only a collection of music, which was used almost entirely as the soundtrack for the film that was ultimately shot in Morocco. OEDIPUS REDUX is a speculative exploration of locations that invites viewers to contemplate a “what if” within cinematic history. A series of vignettes intercut with images from the film constitute an invitation to a spectral journey, a cinematic rite of passage between a nebulous, mythical past and a hyperreal present.
What Pasolini was looking for in Romania, namely an archaic landscape for his yet to come masterpiece Oedipus Rex, is just as interesting as what he found instead: a country in the midst of a revolution. Not a political revolution, but an industrial one. In the end, he left with only a few vinyl records, the The Anthology of Romanian Folk Music series, which would then become the soundtrack to his film. Seemingly, the mystical anistorism he was looking for was (no more) to be found in the Romanian landscape, but in ancient Romanian culture. Cosmin Nicolae’s film plays with this idea of an identity split, responding to Pasolini’s quotes and sequences from Oedipus Rex with some very mesmerising shots of the Dobrogea region, precisely archaic and ahistorical landscapes – from time to time hijacked by a grand abandoned factory, a wind turbine, a camera etc. What Pasolini was looking for never existed, and yet it was right under his nose. (Călin Boto)
Cosmin Nicolae is a director and musician who works with film, sound, and text, focusing on themes related to territory, memory, and transition. He is currently in pre-production for his debut feature film, Corp Teritoriu, with the support of the CNC. After Berliminal, a video essay commissioned by Scena 9, his second short film, Cherry Master, will premiere in 2025. His transition to cinema comes after more than 15 years of releasing records and touring worldwide as a producer for electronic music. His recent projects include music for plays such as Oedipus Rex (2022) and Oedipus at Colonus (2025) at the Teatro Greco di Siracusa (directed by Robert Carsen), and compositions for contemporary dance, such as Oh Captain by Johnny McMillan for the Staatsballett Berlin. His music has been commissioned by BMW, GAP x Balenciaga, and has featured in Anhell69 by Theo Montoya and Don’t Expect Too Much from the End of the World by Radu Jude.
