Apocalypse on Wheels (Apocalypsa după şoferi)
Every city has the traffic it deserves. This is not a film about what the roads or the cars look like, but about what the traffic turns us into.
The streets of Bucharest are packed with cars speeding from one place to another, but no driver seems to follow any rules. The result is complete chaos.
For six months the film-maker followed five drivers, sitting in their cars with them, listening and filming as they careered around town on their everyday journeys. A delivery boy from the country who every day for the last two years has covered 150kms driving 14 hours a day; a paralysed man helping others to find cars; a woman from Peru raised in a city with equally mad traffic who now braves the madness to take her three boys to school; a father mourning the recent loss of his daughter in a traffic accident, hoping for justice; and a policeman, beaten up, bruised, but still directing the traffic – and still listening to rock music – after 17 years.
Contemporary Romanian society in all its glory.
Alexandru Solomon also directed one of last year’s festival highlights, the documentary Cold Waves.
Apocalypse on Wheels and Ecover: Working with Water are a part of Conversation in Europe Workshop Package.
To read an interview with director Alexandru Solomon, click here.
