1 What are the main milestones in Sebastian Bădărău’s way? What events marked your path life?
I would categorize these events into three types: circumstantial, DNA-related (if I can call them that)—meaning those events that stem from internal impulses—and events related to gender, meaning those experiences that challenge a man throughout his life. In terms of circumstantial events, I would mention that I lived abroad for ten years. It’s a transformative experience to be thrown into a different culture that operates under a different value system than the one you’re used to. Living abroad comes with both positives and negatives, but mostly positives. In fact, I believe it’s a gain for anyone who takes that step, and I think it’s vital for our evolution. At our core, I believe the human species is nomadic, and somewhere along the way we got lost and began to settle down. I think the greatest benefit of the exile is that you reach certain levels of personal expression that you wouldn’t be able to achieve otherwise. As an artist, it’s essential to reach these levels because they provide a humanistic perspective to your work, celebrating the individual rather than groups defined by demographic or social factors.
I firmly believe that the exiled has a greater understanding and love for humanity than someone who is rooted in a territory they claim wholly and with a sense of ownership. For me, Belgium and England brought a kind of peace that I couldn’t find in Romania. I learned to listen more than to speak, to look
up at the sky more than down at the ground, to appreciate a sunset and to see Venus and Jupiter in the context of the night stars, to understand that we are almost quantumly connected at a level of „entanglement” across the fabric of time and space, and that we have a single purpose: to play. If we manage not to harm anyone in this process, we gain something extra.
The downside of exile is the sense of not belonging. I believe that, again, the human species has a very strong sense of belonging. As an exile, you don’t belong to any culture, and often loneliness can be crushing. It might sound a bit exaggerated, but exile can often be likened to the McCarthyism of the
1950s. Like Trumbo or other Hollywood screenwriters from that period, you must fight hard to overcome the prejudice of labels: those related to nationality, ethnicity, beliefs, politics, and so on.
In the second category of events, I would include the realization that I am an actor first and foremost, and that is what I love to do the most. I have various hobbies and I enjoy writing and film directing, but these are more platforms to create more opportunities for the actor in me. I believe it’s very important for anyone to realize early on what they want to do in life and to work hard for it, because it’s not easy to achieve what you desire, even when you know what that is. But it’s even harder when you don’t allocate time to explore what you truly enjoy doing.
I think a person’s life can be divided into two major chapters: the moment you are born and the moment you realize why you were put on this earth’s all a rebirth from my perspective. Life has many ups and downs and many detours, but you have to stay focused on what you want to do until the end.
I believe the world lived a heightened state from 2009 to 2012. I felt that a global shift was occurring, that energies were changing. I rather believe that the events that took place then were expressions of both a general anguish and anxiety. The Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street were some of the manifestations against a well-established order. They emerged against the backdrop of the 2008
economic crisis, but I think they represent more of a cyclical, universal expression—the tumult that needs a release valve. Perhaps the Mayans were right, and we all experienced some sort of “end of the world” back then.
This shift also reached the arts. If we take just the example of film, we witnessed a resurgence of science fiction, but in a new form. Sci-fi began to don a cloak of science combined with the esoteric.
Authors who previously seemed uninterested in sci-fi suddenly became fascinated by the world of stars. Terrence Malick created The Tree of Life, while Lars von Trier made Melancholia. I counted at least 20 mainstream films released in a single year belonging to the sci-fi genre. This period informed
both The Uncertainty Principle—a film I wrote during that time but which took 10 years to come to fruition—and my sci-fi novel Tongues of Fire, published in 2019.
Making a film is one of the hardest things you can do. At one point, it was so difficult that I felt like banging my head against the walls. This is because you depend so much on others for it to happen.
Creating a film can be likened to having a child. In both cases, you rely on others for it to come to fruition. Like with a child, a film comes out half with your personality and half with its own. But, just like with a child, it’s also the most beautiful thing you see with your own eyes.
The Uncertainty Principle is based on a lot of science and a bit of sci-fi, but there is an overarching theme that I was interested in exploring: true friendship among men. I believe that every boy grows up with an idea of what kind of man he wants to become. Often, this is shaped by cultural images, by superheroes flying through Gotham City, by Humphrey Bogart saving Ingrid Bergman, or by an Andrew Tate with a carpe diem philosophy. But I think the mechanics of these aspirations hide something deeper related to men—a constant search for mentorship, especially from an older man who can show them the way.
Men experience, I believe, different forms of unhappiness than women. A man who doesn’t know which path to take lives in terrible agony. It’s a make-or-break moment for him; and what’s even worse is that this agony can last for years, for some even decades, and for others, a lifetime. It is the result of pressure from a patriarchal society that expects a man to have his life in order—and quickly,
if possible. There’s a little-spoken truth: that most men, if not all, need to be saved by another man at some point in their lives. But most of the time, salvation doesn’t happen. The image of the sought- after mentor, once found, disappoints. The mentor doesn’t have the answers to our questions, or may
even be less informed than the victim seeking help. Often, he doesn’t appear because there is no form of him that can be imagined. Many times, he can be found close to us, in the image of the father, but most men avoid emulating him out of a kind of stubbornness. They think, “I can do better than him,”
or “Look how many things he failed at!”
But perhaps the harshest realization is that you are stronger than the “mentor” you sought and eventually found, and then you are left only to listen to yourself—and like in a Hamlet-like fate, you wonder if anything you ever do has value.
2 Can an artist be passionate about science?
It is often said that perfect art is science, and perfect science is art. I think there’s some truth to this saying. Music is the perfect art because it cannot deceive the listener. If you’re out of tune, it shows.
But there’s an incredible amount of science in it. I believe most musicians don’t consciously think about how to construct a piece scientifically. They listen to their instincts, their vibe, the flame in their soul, but what we call rhythm, resonance, and vibration is, I think, science. There is a lot of Fibonacci
and the Golden Ratio in the compositions of Mozart or Bach, and it is said that Mozart was aware of the Fibonacci sequence, which he used predominantly in his sonatas—a concept I also speculated on in a dramatic text I wrote two years ago, titled The Three Million Opera, which premiered as a radio play at Radio Iași.
When I was 14, I started taking an interest in Mathematics. This interest arose from the need to seek certainty in my life at a time when nothing seemed certain. My parents were divorcing, and in order to manage the logistics of the separation, I was left at my grandparents’ for a while. I felt like a carpet was being pulled out from under my feet—I couldn’t make sense of complicated things, and nothing is more complicated than people’s emotions. I needed to know that 1+5=6, and Maths provided that. It became a safe zone, a magic circle like Edward Castronova’s Magic Circle, where reality is kept at bay and there exists a new set of clear rules governing the Circle. I strongly believe that our fascination with games comes from the fact that games come with very simple rules to follow. Whether you’re playing hopscotch, Monopoly, or doing rhythmic gymnastics, there is a clear set of rules that must be respected.
In Mathematics, solving an equation offers a comfort that reality cannot provide. There is a conclusion to all the effort put in, we know the final key, and that gives us a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment.
I also believe that the people we call nerds or geeks are actually very sensitive individuals expressing their disappointment with life. A sensitive person finds it very difficult to accept uncertainty, but a magical and vital force is gained when we accept this. We are used to following our life’s path guided by Tarkovskian guides, but true freedom for an individual occurs when they accept that in the equation x+y, we can assign x and y the values of our own strengths, those characteristics that make us unique and powerful in the eyes of the world.
This acceptance must occur precisely because science and mathematics themselves contain many uncertainties. The deeper you delve into mathematics, the more paradoxes and unanswered problems you discover. I believe they have answers, but not within the Euclidean geometries in which we operate. The answer to Zenon s Paradox may be found in higher Mathematics, and by that, I mean
the Mathematics of other dimensions. Since we do not operate in these stratospheres, we are left only to construct our life’s path as we desire. And I believe this path is different for everyone, and that’s okay. What’s important is to enjoy each other when our paths intersect, even if that intersection is temporary.
Ultimately, both art and science are concerned with investigating natural phenomena—whether that means the natural world or human behavior. Science seeks answers to three big questions: Who are we? Where do we come from? What is our ultimate purpose? Anyone who has worked in theater, for example, knows that actors are preoccupied with exactly the same questions. I believe that anyone who delves a bit deeper into the mysteries of both worlds will arrive at a soul-soothing answer much more quickly than someone who tries to keep the worlds at arms length from one another.
3 Are there gods or demons directing our evolution?
There are. I believe there is a God and a devil that corrupts us, regardless of the form or name they take. Whether it’s Christian entities or astral energies, universal harmony or extraterrestrials, I believe we are subjected to forces that exert pressure on us. Personally, I believe in God precisely because we have an acute ancestral need for belonging. Furthermore, if we are to respect the patterns of organization in nature, following the repetitive principles of resonance forces, I believe that the phenomenon whereby any form of life has a parent is also reflected in the strong connection we have with an ancestral parent. If resonance, in the form of sound and vibration that shape themselves up through space and time, causes the physical shape of a bunny to be reflected in a cloud, or a nut to perfectly emulate the shape of the human brain, it means that the earthly parent-child bond is a mirror of an older ancestral connection between a divine parental force and a soul on Earth.
I believe the great mystery is when the corruption occurred. Whether we are the result of a crossbreed between narcissistic extraterrestrials and peaceful primates who didn’t worry about whether they left the gas on when they left home, or that we truly fell from Paradise due to access to the tree of knowledge, corruption gave birth to fear and dread in humans. And I believe God tries to teach us that we shouldn’t be afraid of anything and to accept everything as a game. Nichita Stănescu said that life should only be lived for one reason: out of curiosity. The notion of divine play has strong roots in Hindu theological concepts. The Indians call it Lila —freely translated from Sanskrit as play, amusement— a concept by which the Absolute Divinity (Brahma) sees the entire Creation as a game.
The creative act, for the Indians, is spontaneous, free, and has no ultimate purpose. Since Brahma is seen as the god of perfections, he cannot create with the aim of achieving something he already possesses. Brahma desires nothing. Lila thus becomes Brahmas sport, which does not stem from a conscious desire to create but simply from a desire to play.
4 Are we likely to survive the atomic age?
The outlook doesn’t look too great, does it? This is Dr. Strangelove scenario when someone could flip and just push the button. I believe that if it’s pushed—and I hope we never get there—it will be done out of fear, not from some epic act of initiative. Or maybe a dictators cat will stroll across the table and wonder, “What does this button do?” I don’t think the Earth cares too much whether we survive or not. I have the same perspective regarding the controversies surrounding how our actions harm the planet. I believe the planet will be just fine regardless. We needn’t worry about the planet. It’s our actions that will destroy us as a species. The planet can give us a quick shove at any given moment and take us out of the picture. It could just say, “I’ve had enough of these, guys.”
I think we suffer from a severe case of grandeur derangement syndrome. We feel that everything is very important and we take things far too seriously. I often remind myself of the epiphany Carl Sagan experienced when he saw the famous image of The Pale Blue Dot, captured by Voyager 2 when, at NASA’s request, the probe turned its antennas and cameras back toward Earth from millions of
kilometers away, capturing us in an image that has become part of our cultural legacy. Sagan’s realization that we are so insignificant in the grand scheme of the cosmos, that our wars and struggles are just specks of interstellar dust in a cosmic desert, remains a thought lingering in the air, one that we might only come to value when it’s too late.
5 What about of plastic and polluting consumerism world?
I believe a change is already occurring—even if it’s more of a mental shift than drastic concrete actions—in the way we relate to plastic, pollutants, and consumerism. But there are also forces pushing back against this change. I think we strongly lack the concept of economy. We feel that we need a lot to survive. In theater, efficiency and sufficiency often come through economical means. You
don’t have to do much to be an effective actor. One of the great theatrical reformers of the 20th century, Jerzy Grotowski, compared acting to sculpting. He said that the actor must be like a sculptor:
to extract the form that already exists within the block of stone, revealing it rather than constructing it. Simply put, the actor comes with a baggage of anxieties created by the outside world, and their purpose is to free themselves from everything redundant to their being in order to be a true creator. I find there is a parallel in the way we relate to consumerism. We tend to buy or consume to fill voids in our souls or to gain validation from others. We don’t have a philosophy aligned with the model of viable systems, those systems that are self-sufficient and regenerative. All viable systems exist in harmony with nature; there is a gentle symbiosis in how we use only what we need. The human species is greatly lacking this symbiotic elegance. We behave like a bull in a China shop. We build stuff by destroying our natural resources. I believe nature is trying hard to explain to us how to do it, but, as in many aspects of life, we’ve turned deaf to its pleas.
6 Are we ready, now, to enter into a globalized world?
It seems to me we have entered globalized world for some time now. But we have taken the worst from the global world. We all suffer from generalized anxiety, fear of wars, diseases, fear of invisible enemies. Access to information is a double-edged sword: on one hand, information is power; on the other, by disrupting the wonders of the world, everything that happens in the universe starts to affect you. I believe we are beginning to surpass the globalized world and are moving towards a world of niches. Consumerism is starting to be targeted at niches. The difference from the old forms is that niching no longer takes demographic or geographic factors into account, but rather interests. Artificial intelligence is programmed to serve us only the type of information we are accustomed to. I think this is a huge danger that leads to isolation. Because targeted information begins to validate only what you seek, robbing you of the possibility of being open to other life philosophies and other types of interests and knowledge. I see this trend in all industries. Working in the film world, I see how everything is targeted at niches. A film like All the President’s Men, which was aimed at the general public a few decades ago, is now considered a conspiracy thriller from the 70s. This type of film would now benefit from an aggressive campaign to attract only one segment of the film consumer: those passionate about political conspiracies. A film like Capricorn One, although it has conspiratorial elements, would not be aimed at the same audience that enjoys All the President’s Men, but rather at the group that likes space conspiracies. Of course, all these types of niche marketing campaigns have a financial incentive at their core. It’s easier to sell a product to a segment of the population that is already familiar with the product’s attributes.
7 Will aliens contacting us or avoiding us?
When I was kid, my dad found an aquarium at work. To keep it company and not be alone and abandoned in a storage room, I convinced my parents to take me to the market, where, in a corner, there used to be an animal market. Improperly named, because you could only find fish and chickens.
I got five little fish that I was very proud of. I was fascinated by how they occupied their daily existence, just swimming in circles in a closed space. I noticed they operated in two dimensions: forward, and occasionally they would turn left or right. I could stand above them, watching, and they had no idea I was there.
Michio Kaku said that an ant hill next to a highway would not understand the concept of a highway.
Cars would rush by the hill, and they would not comprehend anything about this road dialogue. It’s the same with us. We might be in the midst of a whole intergalactic dialogue, and we wouldn’t even know it because we don’t operate in those dimensions. I think we make a mistake focusing on extraterrestrial life when extra-dimensional life could be right beside us. Those engaged in this cosmic dialogue might not even notice us because we would be too insignificant and wouldn’t contribute anything to their conversation.
I believe there are other beings like us, just as there are other ant hills on the other side of the highway, but crossing that highway is very difficult. In searching for extraterrestrial life, we look for life that operates only in the same dimensions we do. Until very recently, we searched for life only on the frequency of hydrogen. But there are myriad other frequencies that we don’t even touch. It’s very hard to define what extraterrestrial life is, anyway. The storms that last for hundreds of years on Jupiter show us that the planet is very alive. The exploding volcanoes on Venus, as well as the geysers on Europa, demonstrate that there is activity that can be defined as life. It’s just that it’s life that doesn’t suit us. Because we want to find something that looks like us. I think we make a big mistake.
Our Earth could be a sentient being, and we might not even realize that it’s trying to protect us, to communicate with us, or to warn us.
I like to imagine two inhabitants of Venus relaxing in a pool of hot lava, sipping cocktails, looking at the sky and at our Earth, and one of them says to the other, “Hey, Jeff! Do you think there could be life in all that greenery?” That’s how I believe we search for extraterrestrial life.
8 What music does director Sebastian Bădărău prefer and inspire?
I like music of all kinds. I’ve never paid attention to genres. What matters is that it’s good. I can say I have an affinity for progressive rock. I think Heaven &Hell by Vangelis is the best album ever composed.
I also like to move, and I tend to lean towards funk. For a good while, I listened to electronic funk—I believe the best representative of this genre is John Carpenter. I think a large part of the success of his films is due to the music. The music in Assault on Precinct 13 makes the whole film. The same goes for
Escape from New York and They Live. I enjoy music without lyrics, as people often say in a crude way.
I’m naturally a reductionist, meaning I prefer art to have only the necessary and sufficient elements for it to exist. Generally, I like simple melodic lines, filled with rhythm, repetition, and that add layers with each progression. This is a kind of ritualistic music that I describe. I believe that if I were born in Africa a few thousand years ago, this is the kind of music I would listen to in the evening around the fire.
I think it’s important for any type of music to contain rhythm. I’m not just referring to something punctuated within the piece, but to the fact that music originates from a physical bodily impulse. I really enjoy jazz because it contains these rhythmic elements by engaging playful forces based on improvisation. All good jazz has an improvisational quality, as if it is born in the moment from the
exchange of energy between the musician and the listener.
9 Which Romanian Science Fiction writers are more attractive to the Romanian film world? Are there interesting ideas to script?
Many people forget that before Cloud Atlas, there was Rebreanu’s Adam and Eve. You wouldn’t think of Rebreanu as a science fiction writer, but his work contains elements of mysticism and science that you associate with hard science fiction.
I believe we are an incredibly fertile in the field of science fiction writing, but we are unfortunate in that we don’t speak English, and our work doesn’t transcend the Balkan space. We are similar to the Poles and Czechs in this regard. It took Petru Popescu leaving the country for The Last Wave to reach mainstream consciousness, and even then, his work was not adapted by a Romanian director. It’s true that Peter Weir is an extraordinary director, but I don’t understand why Romanian filmmakers shy away from sci-fi. Urmuz is a phenomenal writer, yet again completely forgotten by the Romanian cinema.
I think our position at the gates of Asia is, both, a blessing and a curse. We are a nation caught between Western pragmatism and Eastern esotericism. Therefore, our work is far too complex for the niche marketing that makes a work widely known. Even speculative literature based more on fantasy contains philosophical elements that are far too complex for a popcorn audience.
I have to admit that these barriers preventing Romanian sci-fi literature from entering mainstream consciousness have made me less knowledgeable about current Romanian speculative writing. When I was younger, I read Ion Hoban, and I really enjoyed Omohom by Cristian Tudor Popescu, which I read
more recently, but there are many writers who I’m sure are very good but whom I don’t know. It’s my fault, not theirs.
But I often think about Cuadratura Cercului by Gheorghe Săsărman. The stories in there are superb and deserve to be adapted, especially Atlantis, which I adored.
10 Is there a market for art film in Romania? What is the evolution of our cinema in the last decades?
We are blessed in this regard. We have been fortunate to have great directors. Romanian cinema has regularly produced art movies. But it’s starting to become a business, just like in the States. We are beginning to produce more and more commercial films that only hold value in terms of consumerism.
Even art films are undergoing changes. These changes are mainly caused by the requirements of funding programs, which stipulate that certain criteria must be met for a film to receive production money. Art films receive funding only if they address the mobility of groups in the context of social factors. Any work that focuses on the attributes of certain groups (immigrants, the poor, social
climbers, politicians, historical figures) loses something of the mysticism associated with the human spirit. Where would you place a film like The Stone Wedding by Dan Pița and Veroiu in today’s marketing context? Such a masterpiece wouldn’t receive funding from investors today. It has become
a luxury hobby to make the film you want.
The only good thing comes from the attempt to commercialize the film industry in Romania.
Unfortunately, the only genre that sells right now in Romania is comedy. Because it’s relatively cheap to produce. You don’t need stunt performers, spectacular visuals—just a decent script, some gags, and a few comedic actors. But we’re talking about pub comedy here, not Operațiunea Monstrul or Actorul și Sălbaticii.
Sci-fi costs money. Especially speculative or fantasy sci-fi. Romania still cannot compete with Hollywood at this level. Not even a co-production between three European countries would have as much money as is available in the States. But my hope is that it takes one or two examples of genre films that break into the mainstream to change the direction of the wind. I believe this change will
come from Romanian independent cinema, which until now has been sublime but completely absent.
I think as long as there are young voices trying to make films without the pressures of a financier, we have a chance for genre films to take flight in Romania.
11 What should develop in us, to build a better future? What would be the great shortcomings of Romanians?
I think we need to be bolder. We lack initiative and are somewhat apathetic. It’s not necessarily our fault. We are a nation that suffers from PTSD. We like to do things in a certain way. We don’t really accept that there are multiple truths in the world. But we are also a nation of geniuses. So, in conclusion, we are a nation of traumatized geniuses. I believe Enescu’s The Romanian Rhapsody captures the essence of Romanians very well: both the madness and the anguish, as well as the mysticism and magic that exist within us. I think we need to free ourselves from the traumas of the past first, in order to make major changes. And we need to learn to listen more and speak less. With our gaze directed more towards the sky and less towards the ground. I could say that we need better roads, larger research funds because we have the intellectual resources for that, but until something changes in the common consciousness, as a click moment, all these directives are pointless.…
