Between 1985 and 1987, the American journalist Edward Serotta visited Communist Romania and took photos of the harsh realities of the country. The Secret Police followed him and secretly took photos of him taking photos. Forty years later, Shot Reverse Shot illuminates both the comedy and irony of a surveillance state that becomes the object of surveillance itself.

A ‘shot-reverse shot’ is a common film technique to denote a conversation; one person is shown looking at someone, and then the other person is shown looking back. In filmmaker Radu Jude and historian Adrian Cioflâncă’s eponymous film, the two photographic archives meet and gaze back at each other. Through their critical reworking, images are laid on the table and we are invited to draw our own conclusions about the inability to capture an objective truth.

Shot Reverse Shot is screened with Stoker by Stelios Bouziotis, a film that also dives into and re-contextualises archives of the past.

GB