8th of March / 8 Martie
( In production, Documentaries )
Synopsis:
Every 8th of March, Romania and former socialist countries celebrate the “International Women’s Day”.
Although I was only nine years old when the communist regime crashed, I still remember how our parents made us carry flower bouquets to school for our teachers, and how a photographer took pictures of us by the blackboard, pretending to finish up a text that had already been chalked down by our teacher: “To my mother, with love”. All women received special attention that day, and we, the children, were happy to show them how much we loved and respected them.
We were as glad as we were when Santa came (renamed Gerila, to avoid any religious reference), or at any major holiday. It was only later that we understood it was a prefabricated holiday that merely needed to be crossed off the list, a holiday
that highlighted model women as they were supposed to be in socialist society: a woman, a mother, a homemaker, working side by side with men in factories; a holiday imported from the Soviet Union.
Every 8th of March, the first page of Scânteia (The Spark) newspaper showed women of the socialist era: the woman lathe-operator, the woman crane driver, the woman doctor, the woman researcher, the mother, the devoted wife. From now on, women and men were equal, and women would do the same kind of work men did. Just as importantly, the model woman was comrade Elena Ceauşescu, „the lady of the republic”. Kindergarten and school children recited poems and sang songs for her.
After the revolution of 1989, an uncertain transitional period followed, when everything that reminded people of communism was pushed aside or buried. Gradually, I too started to move on and dismiss the significance of the 8th of March. However, eventually I found that today, more than twenty years after the fall of communism, this holiday is still celebrated all over the country. However, the manner in which women have decided to celebrate their dedicated day has changed dramatically. The mere flowers and greeting cards have turned into jewels, clothes and perfume, and restaurants go out of their way to provide special offers and dedicated entertainment. Male striptease is already a common way of celebrating Women’s Day.
I spent this past 8th of March travelling around the country with a band of male strippers. Many of these bands tour the country, sometimes with as many as three shows per night in three different cities, rushing to get on time from one to the next. The country’s biggest cities are “invaded” by strippers, as clubs are crammed with women celebrating “the coming of spring”. I have thus discovered a new dimension of the 8th of March. I saw how three men on a stage can drive to hysterics a few hundred women who regularly come to see them every year, who take photos of themselves with them, drink cocktails and eagerly await their shows. They have made this day theirs alone.
This is the only day of the year when they go see a striptease show. It is the only day when they are allowed anything. It is the International Women’s Day.
Crew:
Directed by: Alexandru Belc
Written by: Alexandru Belc, Tudor Giurgiu
