CULTURE COLLECTOR # 25
14:00, Thursday 18th June, Cinema 3
Director/Anthropologist: Sally Gati
Year of Release: 2014
Duration: 90 mins
Country of Production: USA/Romania
Location: Romania/USA
Ethnic Group: Csángó (Hungarian-Romanians)
Language: English (Orig Lang: English/Romanian/Hungarian)
Ferenc Tobak is a Hungarian-American with a passion for Moldavian folklore, a remarkable sensitivity toward the people he collected from, and a sense of adventure. He had footage of himself as a bagpiper and hours of videotape of musicians, singers, dancers, craftsmen, and Gypsies. This gave me the opportunity to follow him (as we might have wanted to follow Alan Lomax or Bela Bartok), and I wove it all into an interesting story of a collector in the field as well as a fascinating film exposing the struggles, the disappointments, and the thrills of collecting.