ARSENIE. AN AMAZING AFTERLIFE

Alexandru Solomon

Romania, Luxembourg

- 2023

A dead monk’s gaze is hypnotizing the masses. He becomes a very profitable brand and is about to be sanctified by the Romanian church. Following in Arsenie Boca’s footsteps (a priest, theologian, and mystic persecuted by the communist regime, considered holy by many believers), we embark on a fictionalized pilgrimage that leads us —with humour and fantasy— through our present confusion and global fears. No afterlife guaranteed.

Alexandru Solomon

Born in 1966 in Bucharest, Romania. In the early 1990s, he emerged as a young director of photography and he started making documentaries aside from filming feature films. His recent work triggered public debates about the function of documentary film within the social sphere for reframing Romania’s recent history. ‘The Great Communist Bank Robbery’ (2004) was awarded Best Film at the History Film Festival in Pessac and the Prize for Social Values at DocumentaMadrid. ‘Cold Waves’ (2007) played for 12 weeks in Romanian theatres. ‘Kapitalism - Our Secret Recipe’ (2010) speaks of the rise of a new ruling class in the East and ‘Tarzan’s Testicles’ (2017), premiered in Karlovy Vary, is a film about utopias and a metaphoric drama that threads the similar destinies of monkeys and men.