Awarded Romanian Director Cristi Puiu Compares Progressivism to Communism

The awarded Romanian director Cristi Puiu is famous for his movies and the awards won throughout his career. At the same time, Cristi Puiu is also known for his controversial statements on social and political issues. One year ago, during the pandemic, he manifested against the restrictions and asked the spectators to his last movie, Malmkrog, to disobey the restrictive measures and not wear the masks during the projection.

Now, another controversial statement reached the first pages of the local publications in Romania. Cristi Puiu talked about progressivism, a trendy political movement in the country, by comparing it to communism.

We are dealing with a diffuse war. I mean the ideological war.

As events unfold throughout history, the impression we have is that we have been through periods of peace, similar to breaks taken during a show. This disagreement has existed since the world and the earth, the conflict between good and evil. We tend to think we’re on the right side of history, but I think it’s just an impression.

We don’t see our flaws. We just see the others’. For me, a family consists of a mother, a father, and a child. I thought about it and felt an attack on my family.

It is one of my speculations. This story was put on progressivism and on the opening to a ‘bright future’. I don’t believe this story because I’ve lived it once before, under communism and I don’t think that when the man gets his mind on issues related to the mystery of being, he will be able to create a more beautiful world. It never happened, this slogan accompanied crime and dictatorial regimes, totalitarianism.

Let me tell you what I think about the whole family story and why the family is on the target list. I consider it has to do with the disintegration of the old world, of what, in the end, progressives think about it as a consumed world, reached at the end of its powers. And then, of course, it has to start from the bottom. How do we reconfigure it? You can’t tear a family apart and sow discord without any consequences. It is also related to gender, race, and everything we have around us.

I think that the aim is, disintegrated or not, the disintegration of society, its atomization. And then the individuals will be like leaves in the wind, easily to control by the installed power.

Romanian director Cristi Puiu for Aleph News

Cristi Puiu talks about a movement that is not welcomed in Romania: progressivism. In a country with religious roots, things like gender fluidity, the interdiction to call your parents mother and father, the gay marriages and all the things seen by some as ‘European values’ or ‘progress’, are not welcomed. From time to time, public figures like Cristi Puiu step forward to tell the people what they all feel about this ‘progress’.

Progressivism can be about the progress of the economy, about the digitalization of the industry, about the protection of the environment and about sustainable development. But, when progressivism steps on the thin ice of delicate subjects like family or sexual behavior, then this movement should expect opposition from people like Cristi Puiu and others alike.