25 years of Romanian revolution: stories with a Belgian touch
In the late 1980s, President Gorbachev loosens the reins in the Soviet Union. The strict communism makes way for more openness and freedom. The new wind also blows to the rest of the Eastern Bloc and the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain fall. 1989 is a revolutionary year.
Almost all regimes in communist Eastern Europe take their first steps towards democracy. But Romania does not flinch. Ceaușescu continues to follow his own dictatorial course. It is Belgians - journalists and people from the cultural sector - who ensure that public opinion in the West opens its eyes to the terror of the regime. Through them, the voices of dissidents such as Doina Cornea and Ana Blandiana are heard.
On 20 December 1989, a popular revolution finally broke out in the city of Timişoara, which soon spread to the whole of Romania. Unfortunately, there was a lot of blood on the last fallen domino of the dictatorships in the Eastern Bloc. Flemish journalist Danny Huwé also died there.
25 Years of Romanian Revolution brings together historically valuable and moving testimonies from people who experienced the Romanian revolution from the front row. Reporters Bert De Craene and Christophe Lamfalussy, Danny Huwé's wife and daughter, accidental tourists Mark Uytterhoeven and Luc Devoldere, but also aid workers and people who fell in love with the country or with a woman: they tell how they experienced Romania, before, during and after the revolution.