Fragments of memories are brought to the surface by the Blue Danube Waltz, revealing the lesser-known history of the Danube – the Black Sea Canal. While borders between filmmaker and actress become blurry, languages and layers of the past intertwine.
„I don’t know my name. I don’t know my origins. I only have memories of a place. But I don’t know if I ever was there.” Where? Along the course of the Danube in Strauss the Younger’s famous waltz. From Germany, where the actress’ great-grandfather survived the Second World War only to later live in Eastern Berlin, to Romania, to the Danube-Black Sea Canal, where the filmmaker’s great-grandfather was part of the political prisoners subjected to hard labor by the communist regime. Starting from a beloved cliché, “The Blue Danube”, Teona Galgoțiu’s film proposes an anguishing but beautiful exercise of alienation against the great imagined common histories – including cinematic ones – championing, instead, everything that is most immediate in a human connection: touch, play, confession. (Călin Boto)
Teona Galgoțiu is a Romanian filmmaker and writer, living in Berlin. She is the founder and curator of the interdisciplinary platform Gura Mare, which celebrates literary and visual experiments through publications and screenings. Among its recent initiatives is creating an international dialogue through translating and promoting Romanian art. Teona’s award-winning short films, theatre plays and debut poetry book have been part of festivals around the world, her latest project being the VR installation about the end of the world called Memories of snow, which will premiere at the Theatre of Essen in October 2025. The questions she keeps coming back to, through her work, revolve around tensions between personal and exterior spaces and the extremes of fascination versus discrimination of “the other”.
