How We Live: A Documentary about Love in Romanian-British Couples

A documentary directed by the emergent talented filmmaker Matei Parascan and especially made for RCI London will be presented on Dragobete, the traditional lovers’ day in Romania. How We Live is an intimate and boundless exploration of love in British-Romanian couples who have generously agreed to be interviewed on camera in the privacy of their homes.

The four couples share their unique stories of love speaking either from the depths of experience or from the freshness of youth, taking a trip down memory lane and recollecting on how they navigate the challenges of language, culture and even love. An emotional story of a decades-long relationship with protagonists having hazardously met in a Petroșani-Bucharest train in 1973, re-seeing each other in 2013, a not so typical love story started in university years and powerfully candid moments from their lives of the four couples are bringing us perspectives that are both personal and universal.

Director’s statement: My documentary captures the genuine part of love. Asking the question of how these mixed couples live and love together I inadvertently unearthed what I now see to be truths about any romantic relationship.

Going from stories which are universal: tenderness, human frailties, how love converts vulnerability into resilience, pathos and passion we reach more personal aspects, such as destiny, chance, the immigrant's life and the way in which beyond politics and the grand politics of the world, are the stories of people so splendidly different and similar as well.

I started this project looking for pragmatic answers to pragmatic questions, and have now realised that in reality, I knew the answer already, I just couldn’t see it. The answer to all my questions was love. It was always love.

Matei Parascan is a Romanian filmmaker and artist, currently a master student at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts, London. His directorial portfolio includes the films Golani (2017), Our Daughter (Meie Tütar), P!SSEYE and Kill O ’Clock (2018).

When: 24 February 2020, 19.00.
Where: live stream pe RCI London’s Facebook page and YouTube channel