Romanian film review and interview – Our Modern Tower of Babel: Please Hold the Line

Pavel Cuzuioc’s Asteptati raspunsul operatorului / Please Hold the Line was one of the finest entries of this year’s TIFF selection and I am delighted to see it continuing its festival rounds, first in Sibiu for Astra Film Festival, where it just snatched the Jury's Special Mention in the Romanian Competition (the festival added an online edition between 16 and 25 October), and then in Moldova, in Cahul and Chișinău, for MOLDOX (9-13/17-19 October). A theatrical release will hopefully follow as soon as the times allow it. I was happy to talk to the director about his film, you can read the interview below after the short review.

Please Hold the Line has a deceptively simple premise in following cable technicians, fixing anything from phone to TV connections, in four countries: Moldova, Bulgaria, Ukraine, and Romania. The camera shows their daily routine in calm, perfectly composed images, cutting between the various countries in the course of a workday, traveling through villages, smaller towns, or modest city neighborhoods.