Collective
Colectiv

The fourth documentary from Bucharest native Alexander Nanau (Peter Zadek inszeniert Peer Gynt, The World According to Ion B., Toto and His Sisters) explores the deadly, widespread corruption present at multiple levels of the Romanian government. But the story Nanau uncovers in Colectiv can also be found in any European country and certainly the US as well.  After a deadly nightclub fire, not unlike the 2003 tragedy at Rhode Island’s The Station, a group of dedicated journalists, working for a daily sports paper of all things, begins to uncover a scandal that makes Watergate look like a parking violation. When many who survived the fire die weeks later in the hospitals where they were being treated for burns, Catalin Tolontan and a team of reporters at Bucharest’s Sports Gazette discover a hornet’s nest of bribery, intimidation, embezzlement, and fraud run rampant in Romania’s health care system. As more and more whistleblowers come forward to speak on and off the record, the deep corruption extends to the pharmaceutical industry and all branches of government. 

The reporters quickly piece together several seemingly unrelated events that took place within weeks of each other, while a new government and an interim Minister of Health are appointed to try and rectify the situation before an upcoming national election. The stakes of this rapidly-paced yet never rushed real-time procedural thriller could not be higher. More than Spotlight, Citizenfour, or any recent documentary or docudrama, Colectiv makes the case for why independent journalism is critical to the healthy functioning of any society. Branded as “enemies of the people” by corrupt leaders and propagandists in the United States and elsewhere, those in the fourth estate are the best safeguards citizens have against elected officials and others in positions of power that abdicate their duty to serve the public good in favor of serving themselves. Romania has its own right-wing parties and news sources and, though this film doesn’t give them much screen time, we clearly see their power and influence. It is perhaps most telling that the publication that broke and ran with this story, and the one the whistleblowers felt most safe confiding in, was a sports publication. But the Sports Gazette is the most trusted news source in the entire country, and they do far more than print football scores. Tolontan heads up an investigative team at the paper which already had a track record of exposing national and international corruption with in the sports industry. When Government figures discovered that Sorts was another arena where they could line their pockets, it was the Sports Gazzette that exposed them and often got government officials fired.

Nominated for both Best International Feature and Best Documentary Feature Oscars, Colectiv is the year’s most powerful and timely picture. It is an example of the importance of access for a documentary. Not that some terrific docs haven’t been made despite filmmakers’ limited access to key subjects, but when the Cinéma vérité approach is utilized with this level of access for a contained duration in which incidents occur and information comes in at a dizzying pace, it draws the viewer in like nothing else can. Experiencing this clearly delineated documentary that takes place in a country and language most will be unfamiliar with yet requires no voice over, no talking heads, no reenactments, no graphs, no animated sequences, no clips from TV shows, no interstitial titles, no music, and not even lower thirds text identifying the various characters, reminds us of the power of cinema for both storytelling and journalism. The seemingly unfettered access Nanau had to the Sports Gazette journalists, to the interim Minister of Health and his staff, from inside the Colectiv nightclub during the fire, AND around the whistleblowers (none of whom are hidden or blurred despite the danger they must have put themselves in) is astonishing. Yet for all drama it uncovers, the film never feels exaggerated, manipulative, or flashy. The everydayness of Colectiv is part of what makes it both fascinating and terrifying.