Brîndușa I. Nastasă (1989, RO, she/her) is a multi-disciplinary artist with a background in film, photography, and journalism. Her previous work as a filmmaker has shed light on the stories of underrepresented women from around the world, addressing themes of gender inequality and social injustice. In her recent work, Brîndușa shifts her focus on exploring existential questions that shape our human experience, delving into the depths of philosophical inquiries about the nature of human relationships and death anxiety.
Brîndușa is the director and co-founder of Springroll Media, an international collective of feminists visual storytellers and filmmakers.
This is Your Coffin (interactive installation & video, in development) - Step into a white room, lay down in a transparent coffin, and dive deep into your strongest memories with the help of a guided meditation.
'Your Coffin' is an interactive installation that explores people’s relationship with mortality through memories and reflections in the context of a conceptual death ritual. It captures how people from different cultural backgrounds and age groups react and reflect on the significance of life and death. By drawing inspiration from the Buddhist practice of death meditation, the installation creates a transformative space that encourages introspection and provides solace for participants grappling with death anxiety. The project serves as a powerful reminder of the impermanence of life, inviting individuals to confront their mortality and find meaning in the present moment.
Death Meditation - Death meditations, Maraṇasati or death awareness is a Buddhist meditation practice of remembering that death can strike at any time. This video is a standalone project, but also part of the bigger research for ‘This is Your Coffin’, through which I am trying to find answers to the following questions: What role can art play in alleviating death anxiety? How can art integrate with meditations, neuroscience and mindfulness practices? What are the potential effects of this kind of practice on participants? Can it expand their awareness concerning death? How can responsible practices be employed while working with participants?
Barbie and Death – Unveiling the Existential Paradox (video, 4 minutes) - ChatGPT says this video aims to unravel the existential paradox that arises when confronting mortality through a plastic, perpetually youthful figure. By using the 'artistic lens' of ChatGPT, the video merges stock footage aesthetics with philosophy to prompt introspection on the interplay between beauty and the inevitable passage of time.
The video uses AI generated voice-overs for Barbie and ChatGPT in order to portray a conversation on the concept of mortality guided by the book 'The Top Five Regrets of the Dying' by Bronnie Ware.
But really what is this all about?!
password: Barbie
Tell me about the texture of your emotional universe (video, 4 minutes) - This video, created solely with stock footage and an AI voice-over generator, delves into the depths of human experience. It explores profound themes of heartbreak, romantic relationships, and human connections, prompting viewers to contemplate philosophical questions about what unites us as humans. Through its unconventional approach, the video challenges traditional content creation and invites introspection into the complexities of our shared existence. It marks the beginning of a series of videos that aim to play with the boundaries of stock footage while delving into the fundamental aspects of human relationships.
Ik Vluchtte naar Rotterdam (video, 7 minutes) - How to get home when we are not with our bodies? The material aspects of our experiences are unique. The shape of our bodies, where they are in space and time, the things and people we interact with may be different. But the way we live those experiences have enough in common that we can relate to others who felt the same. By portraying the common psychological underpinnings of sexual abuse, trauma and dissociation, and healing, ‘I fled to Rotterdam’ brings attention to the shared experiences of all too many women. ‘I fled to Rotterdam’ rejects a depiction of powerless victimhood, ceaselessly fleeing. It also refuses to represent the aggressor. Instead, it focuses on the odyssey to take the first step towards healing - to come back home to ourselves.
Blue Banks. Female Identities in Rural Romania (multimedia exhibition) - Our goal is to look beyond public policies, beyond the borders of the liberal states to which we aspire. We want to look at the concrete reality, where every woman lives with herself, where they feel freedom or its absence in their own particular way. We set for ourselves the question of how does one gain that inner freedom which in turn naturally produces the “hormone” of equality in societies in which it is still commonplace for women to be just an object of sexual desire or abuse. What happens with their feelings when they perceive injustice? What obstructs and what encourages them in building their own identity and not just mimicking what is at hand. How do they manage to attain their own?
Blue Banks is about two parallel struggles: the inner and the outer fight.
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Part of a multimedia exhibition organized in Bucharest.
Ninety-two More or Less (video, 16 minutes) - “It’s important to die once you have become useless.”
This is a story about the acceptance of nature’s will and the slowing of life towards its end as three generations of women reflect on death. Wishing and waiting for it. A tribute to my 92-year-old grandmother to whom I say good-bye every time I leave, as if each time is the last. With a trembling camera I capture the church bells, crooked lines, and lost chickens, in a testament to how I will remember my 'Buni' and her garden, and everything that will continue to grow within it. Festivals: DO PAO International Film Festival, Portugal 2016; FICAE International Film Festival, Spain 2017
In Berlin We Die Alone (video, 7 minutes) - This film made in 48 hours allows the viewer to be a fly on the wall during an evening in the life of a young gay man in Germany, and director Brindusa Ioana Nastasa does an excellent job of making the viewer feel like they are part of the crowd in the club yet completely invisible at the same time through an unusual cinematographic style. This creates a heightened sense of loneliness which is a prevalent theme throughout the film, as the audience watches the protagonist’s journey through the film begin and ultimately end alone. The shortness of the length of the shots and the lack of dialogue for the majority of the film helps give it that edgy and intriguing quality, which, along with Nastasa’s impressive imagery, makes 'In Berlin We Die Alone' a must-watch. (review by Isabel Harridence, programmer Worcestershire Film Festival) Awards and festivals: Jury Special Mention - Libercine Film Festival Buenos Aires 2014, Entzaubert queer D.I.Y uncommercial film festival 2014, Bangalore Film Festival 2014, Worcestershire Film Festival 2014
Behind the Monastery Walls (video, 47 minutes) - This documentary isn't aimed at religious individuals; rather, it's intended for curious souls, like myself, who are intrigued by unconventional ways of life. While Romania's monasteries are renowned for their beauty, the lives of those residing within often remain shrouded in mystery. Through intimate interviews, this film provides a window into the minds and beliefs of nuns and monks living in Romanian monasteries. How distinct is their life's journey? How does their perception of the world align with a different realm?
