The short that left the strongest impression on me was Cori și Willi (dir. Tudor Pojoni - born in 1970, with a long career in Film Editing, but only at his second short as a Director). Set inside an apartment, a middle-aged Romanian nurse takes care of an old Austrian man who does nothing but constantly insult her, gloat about his past military crimes and the Jews and gypsies he has killed, and perhaps worst of all, tempts her with money in exchange for her to take his own life. In their exchanges, Willi (Klaus Münster) and Cori (Ofelia Popii) take on aspects of devil and angel. He uses temptation, humiliation and anger to try to get Cori to give up, to hurt her, to make her feel horrible, to break her spirit, to turn her into a murderer. In response, Cori is unexpectedly generous in her care, going above and beyond the bare minimum of her responsibilities. In the face of his monstrous demeanor, she washes him with care and attention, feeds him lovingly, and attends to his needs as if he were an innocent child.
In a world in which we are primed for prejudice, revenge, judgement, punishment, and thanks to social media in a manner even faster and perhaps more blind than ever before, this short film is an act of defiance. What if we could rise above our impulses to judge, condemn, punish those we deem monsters, criminals, or even just "bad humans", instead caring for them with the love and attention of a mother, what type of world would that be? Surely a very different one than the one in which we currently find ourselves. These are the thoughts the film elicited in me.
Bravo to Tudor Pojoni and team for bringing us this brave vision in the short film format.
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