R. has worked as a set photographer for various Romanian film production companies and movie studios. Dissatisfied with the work conditions, he agreed to give this interview in order to speak about the power ratios that define the work relations in such environments. What’s the most recent project you worked on? A commercial filmed by some foreigners in Buftea, at MediaPro Pictures. A more ambitious project, with a big team, on which I worked for a week. I’d start in the morning at six o’clock and work for twelve hours, but the schedule wasn’t always observed. There were days when …

Cristi Badea is a props master for films, TV series and commercials. He has been running his own business since 2005 and works with various production companies to construct stage props. In 2011 he sued Tandem Film production company for failing to pay what they owed him. I talked to Cristi about working conditions in the film/commercial production industries, about the (im)possibility of unionizing and about taking production companies to court as a method of fighting back. (David Schwartz) Did you ever discuss with other props masters the possibility of unionizing, or maybe just adopting some common work principles, to …

Theatre Underground. The Jiu Valley after 1989 is a a project focused on every-day life observation and the critical analysis of the existence of workers’ communities decisively hit by the political changes in the 1990s. The project aims to document the economic situation, the life and work of miners during the post-socialist regime. Theatre Underground proposes a performative reconstruction of the documentary stories that structure the history of Jiu Valley communities, on the edge between survival, migration, extinction and possible reconstruction. Underground is a performative archive of testimonies from disappearing communities. The show aims to revalue the stories, problems and …