Street: How did you get involved with this film?
Anamaria Marinca: I was already living in London, and Christian called me. I read it overnight, and the next day I was on the plane. We started shooting in two weeks.
Street: What was it like getting into character?
AM: This is my past as well; this is my culture. It was a way of showing the problems women had. Of course I'm speaking of the decree that came in 1967 that banned abortion. It was a very good opportunity to explore the past. It was an amazing process; I saw this documentary made called Children of the Decree, about this generation born due to that decree. It was a film about unwanted children, basically.
Street: What was life like growing up in Romania under Communism?
AM: I remembered very much from 1987. I remember the colors and the smells. I grew up in a block of flats - there was concrete everywhere. Only in the summertime did we have a chance to play in the grass in the mountains. Life basically had to do with ideology, being told patriotic songs, having to learn all these poems. One thing I really remember was that we only had bananas at Christmas.
Street: Western media portrays Romania as a democratization success story. Are the changes as significant as they're made out to be?
AM: I lived in Romania until a year and a half ago, when I moved to London. I still go home a lot though. We're experiencing an economic boom, so every time I go back home, I see changes. People's mentalities, buildings. People still have scars from the past though.
Street: What's the current political situation like in Romania?
AM: Difficult to say because it's not an easy life, there's a very big gap between the classes, like the movie depicted. There's not a constructed middle class. The one[s] who have the power are involved in politics. But now things are much calmer. People aren't sure they have the right to express an opinion, after forty years of dictatorship. I remember that frozen background with all the things we didn't have, so we had culture instpead. It was the only [way] people could express themselves. There was always a subversive culture.
