Football

In 1966, during the filming of a series of brief interviews with cinema audiences to mark the 1000th issue of the newsreel, one of the individuals interviewed outside the “Patria” cinema in central Bucharest shared his opinion that the newsreel should feature more cultural content… but also more football. The balance between culture and sport—more specifically, between culture and football—became a point of contention regarding the newsreel. This debate played out not only in internal discussions among the production team but also in the press and through letters from viewers, yet it was never satisfactorily resolved.

By 1971, when this particular subject was filmed, the newsreel crews had gained enough experience to capture sports competitions properly, using dynamic angles and providing often surprisingly passionate commentaries. In this case, the video-over commentary was written by Ion Visu, a veteran producer of the newsreel, who bitterly confesses that the film crew, also disheartened by the outcome of the match, filmed it solely to ensure that “another great opportunity for affirmation missed by the Romanian footballers” would be preserved in the studio’s archive.

In 1971, the cinematographers who travelled to Bratislava to film the football match between Romania and Czechoslovakia had gained enough professional experience to use telephoto lenses for sports competitions—a technique that, as noted in Probleme de cinematografie, many had been hesitant to adopt for years due to concerns that the resulting footage would be devoid of aesthetic appeal. However, their agility in capturing key moments wasn’t always flawless: in this subject, the cinematographer missed the crucial goal that shot by the Romanian team in the penultimate minute of the match, as he had his camera fixed on the opposing side of the pitch, likely hoping for a different outcome.

This failure to capture such a pivotal moment was taken in stride by the newsreel producers. They understood that by the time the footage made its way to Romanian cinemas—weeks or even months later—the public’s passions would have cooled, and no one would be eager to revisit a goal conceded by the national team. As a result, the voice-over commentary included phrases like, “We all know already what the spectators in the stands saw at this point…” and “We already know the result of the match in Bratislava.”

Otherwise, the structure of this newsreel topic itself is somewhat abrupt. In 1971, the producers were experimenting with a new format that connected various topics in a more fluid manner, making them harder to distinguish or separate from one another today.