PRINCESS WARRIOR: STORIES OF RESILIENCE wins the EWA Network Award at Astra DOC TANK
Ioana Țurcan wins the EWA Network award at ASTRA DOC TANK. The film is produced by Cristina Badea at Adenium Film.
DIRECTOR'S BIOGRAPHY
With an education in cinematography (BA), documentary film (MA) and film production (MFA), Ioana Țurcan works at the intersection of film, interdisciplinary arts and cultural production. Her medium-length documentary, The Other Life of Charon, 2015, was nominated in the Best Short Film category at Gopo Awards Romania and her short fiction film, Empiric, 2021, was featured in over 20 film festivals worldwide.
SYNOPSIS
„Princess: Warrior” documentary presents the stories and perspectives of 3 women of different ages, nationalities and ethnicities who follow unusual trajectories for the social mainstream in terms of career, relationships and lifestyle and try to establish a representative position in the field of competitive sport, regardless of the limiting social rigours of age, ethnicity or normalcy.
DIRECTOR'S NOTE
The perspective of the film comes from my youth years as an ex-fighter when I realised that I grew up without either role models or stories about successful women. I have been practicing competitive boxing during college years, taekwondo as a child and a lot of other male dominant sports like football and basketball.
To this experience I could add the understanding on what does it also mean to be on a male ground as a cinematographer and documentary filmmaker. This makes me even more concerned and aware of the need to create a multidimensional portrait of the women involved in the project, from a more intimate perspective, inviting them in the team instead of the role of the "subject".
By inviting the protagonists in the project, as collaborators and co-creators of their own image, we hope to bring more awareness in the process of documentary making and offer equal space to the protagonists to have agency in the way their story is told, to participate in the creation of their own visual representation, to be transparent and consensual through the whole production process.
The film will follow the protagonist’s process of becoming, using live footageand the process of creating a tableaux vivant.
The tableaux vivants that we intend to create will be visual symbols that will incorporate not only representative personal objects, video and audio fragments, but also specific creative elements that are in strong connection with the protagonists, their preoccupation, interest or backgrounds. Among them we can mention animation, video-music style, social media formats and text creating a visual monument in a public space.