Maia – Portrait with Hands (Portret cu mâini)

Romania, 2024. Director Alexandra Gulea. 90min.

In her captivating film, artist Alexandra Gulea knits together the life of her grandmother Maia (whose life Gulea dates backwards to 1999–1905) with the history of the Aromanians, a Balkan ethnic group subjected to displacement and cultural suppression during early 20th-century nationalist conflicts. Through a collage of carefully composed cinematic tableaux, archival footage, photographs, puppetry, drawings, and performative ‘re-incarnations,’ the film results in an extraordinarily layered portrait that is both deeply personal and historical. Dress emerges as one of Gulea’s central motifs. A red bridal gown with a five-meter train represents Maia's resistance to marriage customarily arranged by Aromanian women and translucent men's suits that move in the wind evoke the death by hanging of Gulea’s great-grandfather and other relatives. Elsewhere, an inherited velvet dress is seen drifting through the landscapes the Aromanians once traversed from the Black Sea to Bucharest. As Gulea notes: ‘The velvet dress is borne like a spectre. The landscapes in the film, in all their vastness and diversity, bear witness to Maia’s passage through these lands. Waters, mountains, trees – all have known her, all have absorbed her suffering.’

Past screenings

Grounded: Fashion’s Entanglements with Nature – London
Thursday 29 May 2025, 18:15 | Genesis Cinema
UK premiere, with post-screening Q&A with director Alexandra Gulea. With thanks to Paul Șoptirean.