Towards White
In an oneiric space, the filmmaker confronts and subverts the harassment she faced while documenting the Syrian refugee crisis in Romania, when she was only 21 years old.
Through an oneiric and experimental lens, the filmmaker confronts her own experiences of harassment and institutional control, exploring how these encounters shape perception, body, and agency. Inspired by the photography series of the Romanian visual artist Geta Brătescu, the film navigates opacity and vulnerability, creating a reflective space where trauma is both embodied and mediated through artistic practice. By blending personal narrative with abstract black and white analogue photography, the work opens a dialogue about witnessing, control, and resilience, offering a meditation on the subtle violences that mark professional and intimate spaces.
Q&A with director Letiţia Popa
Sunday 9 November at 16:15h
Programme section: New Talents Competition
Original title: Towards White | Year: 2025 | Duration: 6′
Country: Romania, The Netherlands | Language: Romanian | Subtitles: English
Director: Letiţia Popa | Production: Visual Erosion | Cast: Letiţia Popa | Screenplay: Letiţia Popa | Editing: Letiţia Popa
FESTIVALS & AWARDS (SELECTION)
GoShort International Short Film Festival Nijmegen, 2025
DIRECTOR’S BIO
Letiţia Popa is a Romanian filmmaker, visual artist and researcher based in Amsterdam. She holds an MA from the Netherlands Film Academy through the Master of Film – Artistic Research In and Through Cinema. She holds a BA in Film and TV Directing from the National University of Theatre and Film Bucharest, complemented by an MA in documentary filmmaking. In 2021, she completed a one year Erasmus exchange in Belgium, at Kask and Conservatory School of Arts Gent. Her films have received recognition at esteemed European film festivals, including Astra FF, FipaDoc IFF, Ji.hlava IDFF, Visions du Réel, GoShort and she has been honoured with an award from Périphérie Docs. Letiţia’s work navigates themes of womanhood, otherness, memory and identity, exploring the process of becoming through the intimacy of everyday life. Blending fiction and documentary, her films focus on subjective perspectives, ethical authorship, and the liminal space between self and other, with a strong attention to relationships, power dynamics, and questions of belonging.
