Film director Cristian Mungiu, two-time winner of the Palme d'Or award, warned on Thursday, at the Sibiu International Theatre Festival (FITS), that society is going through a period of radicalisation and violence, and the only solution is dialogue based on patience and wisdom.

'Society has become more radicalised. (...) I'm trying to tell a story that narrates an event in which values are very different and to say it with this exhortation, how we get out of this crisis of radicalisation, because at this level of social violence that we have, the next step is being at each other's throat and dragging each other off the bridge, in the water. We are living in a rather violent world where patience is at the limit, and we see in how many spots this remnant of patience gives way and conflicts come to light. Ideally, we should try before it has come out, to see if we can find small resources of wisdom and some resources of patience, because dialogue involves patience and dialogue involves not being sure that you know the truth and that it belongs only to you and everyone else can only be on the wrong side of things', Mungiu said.

In the director's opinion, Romania is also facing a moral crisis, and the frequent appeals to the 'national interest' are meaningless if they are not supported by the integrity of those who invoke them.

'If we look at what is happening these days in Romania, we will see that our level of morality is (...) very questionable and very interpretable. When I hear this phrase used a lot these days and emptied of any content, called national interest, the most interesting thing for me is to ask myself if the person who goes out on the news in the evening and talks about the national interest, this is more interesting for me, it interests me if that person, in the evening when he gets home, can look in the mirror and have fooled himself so much that he thinks he is doing a job or he put his mask next to it and admits that it is also a survival mechanism,' said the filmmaker.

Mungiu added that he is concerned about what kind of society we leave to future generations.

'It's not really fair, because we are now giving them a society that we pretend it is floating, but it's not what should have been given. That is, it has no structure, no organisation, no vision,' added Mungiu.

The director participated on Thursday in a special conference at the Sibiu International Theatre Festival (FITS).

On May 23, Cristian Mungiu won his second Palme d'Or, becoming the tenth director in history to achieve this feat, joining filmmakers such as Francis Ford Coppola, Emir Kusturica, the Dardenne brothers and Michael Haneke.

FITS brings together throughout June 29 over 5,000 artists from 83 countries and offers the public 848 events, eight more than in the previous edition, according to the chairman of the festival, actor Constantin Chiriac.

The AGERPRES National News Agency is a media partner of FITS. AGERPRES (RO - editing by: Isabela Paulescu; EN - writing by: Corneliu-Aurelian Colceriu)

Display count: 366