They meet in person many years after seeing each other for the first time in photos sent by regular mail. They have waited for this meeting for a long time, in which they were only allowed to write letters. They are convicts from men’s and women’s prisons. Unsentimental and heartbreaking documentary on love that indeed knows no limits.
Radu Muntean and his resident co-scriptwriter Alexandru Baciu produced fiction about complex love relationships in unadorned scenes that were spun out at length in the films The Paper Will Be Blue, Boogie and Tuesday, After Christmas. The Romanian HBO documentary Visiting Room shows that love goes where it almost can’t: as far as jail. Two prisoners maintain an intimate love affair for years. By writing to each other. Sometimes five letters a week, many pages, and with life-size sketched hearts.
They explain how it started, after they happened to see each other on a photo. How creatively they had to work to meet each other physically. And how they even got married. Love knows no barriers, maybe specifically for those who are surrounded by iron bars every day.
Muntean and Baciu record the love stories without judging, in a transparent, detached style. They manage to keep their distance and at the same time penetrate deeply to the soul of these prisoners, for whom love seems to be their only hope. –IFFR
Radu Muntean (1971-) is a Romanian film director and screenwriter. He is part of the Romanian New Wave.
Radu graduated from the Theater and Film Academy in Bucharest in 1994. Since 1996, he has directed over 400 commercials and has won over 40 national and international awards in various advertising festivals. His feature debut, Furia (English: The Rage), was awarded Best First Film by The Romanian Filmmakers Union, and Best Photography at the 2003 Transilvania International Film Festival. His second feature, The Paper Will Be Blue, as well as Boogie are highly representative of the Romanian New Wave. –Wikipedia
