Experimentul Pitesti

A true cinematic masterpiece, 'The Pitesti Experiment,' helmed by the visionary director Victoria Baltag, is a profound exploration of human history's shadowed corridors. With an audacious storytelling style, the film fearlessly uncovers the raw facets of the Pitesti Experiment, leaving an indelible impact on both individual psyche and societal psyche.

Every frame resonates with emotion, every gaze speaks volumes, and every dialogue reverberates through the soul. Victoria Baltag has managed to channel the anguish with such intensity that it leaps off the screen, courtesy of the captivating visuals and the actors' profound performances. The audience is taken on an emotional roller coaster, experiencing the characters' struggles and triumphs on a personal level.

The empathy evoked for the tortured characters is unparalleled; the film serves as a haunting reminder of the horrors committed in the pursuit of power and control. It unveils the psychological fragility of the victims, imprinting their suffering in our hearts, compelling us to uphold the sanctity of human rights.

In summation, 'The Pitesti Experiment' stands as a courageous and imperative film, unearthing a somber chapter in our collective history. Through its emotionally charged narrative and empathetic lens, Victoria Baltag guides us through the intricate labyrinths of human emotion, inciting contemplation on the boundaries of humanity when confronted with extreme circumstances. This film unquestionably warrants our unwavering attention. It is a clarion call for its presence not just on the Romanian cinema screens, but also on the international stage. This cinematic masterpiece transcends borders, deserving to captivate hearts and minds worldwide.

I find it difficult to state how I feel having seen the movie. I know it is not for the faint hearted but it is necessary, critical in our days to know the truth, the history as it happened.

It may be hard for people to relate today although, looking at the current conflict in Ukraine, authoritarianism is very present nowadays.

The fact the movie was made without a budget and still very much managed to reflect reality and provide a glimpse into what was the darkest, most cruel, dehumanising process in Romanian history (possibly not just Romanian history) is a fantastic thing in itself.

It reminds me once more that cruelty has no political or religious affiliation. It is a human being that simply lost their humanity.

The only reason for the rating is due to the gruesome representation. Not the kind of movie I'd like to see over and over.

An amazing movie, made by an amazing lady. A movie with real content, based on true facts, with one of the best actors ever, Ion Caramitru, beyond so many others with so much quality. Victoria is an inspiration for so many people: she made a movie with so few resources and with an amazing output. Please take the opportunity to watch all the movie and know a bit more about Romanian history. It's worth it.

In addition, please follow Victoria in her social media as she is preparing new surprises, who knows, new films ;) With so many talent and experience I believe you will receive a great award soon.

Last night I was present with my colleagues at the Pitesti Philharmonic for the release here, too, of the independent feature film Experimentul PITESTI, by the young producer and director Victoria Baltag, with whom I had the opportunity to meet 12 years ago, just before to beginning to work on this featurefilm. This feature is a distinctive event, a document-film, a historical paragraph.

The Pitesti experiment remains in Romania's recent history one of the cruelest methods of re-educating the imprisoned, most of them pupils and students whose thinking had to be changed in order to comply with communist requirements.

The artistic film, a tough one, moves you and makes you witness some atrocities that took place shortly before we were born, in the places near us, at the Pitesti Prison.

The more people become aware of the possibility of the presence of "evil", the harder it can be repeated.

I invite you to watch this piece of black history that puts Pitesti on an unfair map of cruelty for awareness and knowledge.

I congratulate Victoria for the work done and the result - a masterpiece, a film that makes Pitesti known all over the world, and with the effort of each of us, we can show that everything that happened during that time was just an unrepeatable episode."

Since the meeting with Francisc Ford Copolla (in 2007) I have never seen so much pasture, rigor in documentation, attention to details, enthusiasm and emotion well controlled by the authority of the consciousness of one's own value in a director. A MAN and a Genius (I own the terms) whom I had the chance to meet in Suceava, along with the screening of her film about the Pitesti experiment that began (the climax), in Suceava.

The public still knows very little about the terrible Pitesti Experiment, in which some political prisoners were turned against others and the latter went through unimaginable tortures. Books and studies were written, but it was not enough. To fill this gap, 12 years ago, a very young director, Victoria Baltag, started an ambitious project, without any funding.

In 2015, he managed to make an artistic film without a budget, in which the late great actor Ion Caramitru also participated, in what would be his last role in a feature film.

From then until now, the director and her team of volunteers went with the film on a national tour, in 44 places, but she was also invited to Mexico, Canada and the USA. Every time he presented in an exhibition the objects he managed to collect: three paintings made by the prisoner Fag Negrescu after he managed to survive the inferno in Pitesti, numerous other paintings donated by contemporary artists because from the money obtained in following their sale to be able to help the project, works of art by the director, photos and objects from the filming, a necklace donated to Iasi by the journalist Lucian Merisca, the son of Constantin Merisca, a former political prisoner in Pitesti.

At the end of August, the first edition of the tournament ended in Bucharest, for a little while because the second tournament of 2023 is going to start this fall and has at its center objects of the young people who went through the Pitesti Experiment.