A star is falling under an acid sky
by Letitia Popa
Research & project
An autofiction to help navigate times of collective distress
This research explores how the legacies of authoritarian regimes, particularly their impact on women, are passed down through personal and family histories, using fiction to reflect on collective trauma and political oppression. Framed around the days leading up to the Romanian presidential elections, the project reflects on how political histories continue to shape intimate experiences, particularly around reproductive rights, gendered violence, and intergenerational silence. While earlier research phases engaged with self-ethnography and reenactment, the final film adopts a narrative-driven approach that blends fiction, found footage, and personal narratives. By weaving together, the political and the personal, the work contributes to broader conversations on feminist resistance, diasporic identity, and the affective politics of remembering.
This research embraces that principle by situating itself within the embodied perspective of intergenerational trauma. It draws from personal historiographies that weave together familial narratives with Romania’s collective history of oppression, particularly focusing on the enduring legacy of authoritarian systems.
My positionality may be biased, but it is precisely through this lens that I attempt to bridge contemporary perspectives on the resurgence of far-right ideologies and their psychosocial impact on younger generations.
Rather than seeking objectivity, this project embraces subjective truth as a valid mode of inquiry. Fiction becomes a methodological tool, or a space of freedom, allowing imagination and fact to co-exist. Through the perspective of the female lineage in my family, I attempt to process a traumatic past and critically reflect on how inherited silence, memory, and ideology shape identity.
Credits A star falls under an acid sky
Director, Writer, Editor: Letitia Popa
In order of appearance: Cătălina Romaneț, Ela Ionescu
Voice: Ioana Bugarin
Produced by: Visual Erosion
Assistant Producer: Milena Gabrysiak
Camera: Keith Tedesco
Camera Assistant: Ahmed AlAmoudi
Gaffer: Daan Priem
Boom Operator: Zoey Kenyon
Sound Design: Francesco Rubin, Luuk Bokkum
Set & Styling: Froukje Zuidema
Hair & Make-up: Ana Bogolyubova, Janelle Thijm
Driver: Marius Puiu
8 mm footage: Letitia Popa
Found Footage preserved by Eye Film Museum Amsterdam
Music: Marcel Alan
Letitia Popa
Letitia Popa is a Romanian filmmaker, currently serving as an artistic researcher at the Netherlands Film Academy through the Master of Film – Artistic Research in and Through Cinema. She holds a bachelor's degree in film and TV Directing from the National University of Theatre and Film Bucharest, complemented by a master's degree in documentary filmmaking.
Her films have received recognition at esteemed European film festivals, including Astra Film Festival, FipaDoc IFF, Jihlava IFF, Visions du Reel, GoShort and she has been honored with an award from Périphérie Docs.
Letitia Popa’s work navigates themes of womanhood, otherness, memory and identity, exploring the process of becoming through the intimacy of everyday life. Blending fiction and documentary, her films focus on subjective perspectives, ethical authorship, and the liminal space between self and other, with a strong attention to relationships, power dynamics, and questions of belonging. At the heart of her storytelling lies the idea of home - as memory, as body, as fiction, as loss - a recurring thread that grounds both her past and future films in a personal yet universal terrain.