“My Father Started Using the Hidden Camera to Send Messages Expressing What Seemed Like Regrets”: Lina Vdovîi and Radu Ciorniciuc on their TIFF-Premiering Doc Tata

Lina Vdovîi and Radu Ciorniciuc’s TIFF-debuting Tata originated with a cry for help from a migrant worker being physically assaulted by his boss. The Romania-based filmmakers, partners in life and art, are both veteran investigative journalists in their region — Vdovîi an award-winning reporter from the Republic of Moldova who’s been nominated for the European Press Prize, Ciorniciuc a co-founder of the first independent media organization in Romania — so worker exploitation was a familiar beat. More troubling, however, was the familiarity of the man video messaging the duo from Italy: Vdovîi’s dad, a father who she’d long been estranged from, having grown up in a household rife with domestic abuse. Thus begins a fraught, country-hopping journey, one in which the pair go from simply outfitting Vdovîi’s dad with a hidden camera in pursuit of justice to deeply reckoning with a multigenerational past of toxic masculinity. And then somewhere along the way Vdovîi happily becomes pregnant, raising the stakes of truth and reconciliation ever more urgent and profound. Just prior to the September 7th world premiere of Tata (Romanian for father), Filmmaker caught up with the couple, last on the North American festival circuit with their Sundance 2020 Best Cinematography Award-winning Acasă, My Home.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.