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Romania’s secret police trailed a Jewish photographer. Decades later, their files have become a film.

JL;DR SUMMARY The short documentary "Plan Contraplan/Shot Reverse Shot," directed by Radu Jude and historian Adrian Cioflnc, explores the obsessive surveillance of Jewish-American photojournalist Edward Serotta by Romania's Securitate during the 1980s. A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least, that was the handle his lovin' parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place s'durned innarestin'.

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Tags

Jewish HistoryCold WarJewish LifeDocumentaryRomaniaPhotographyBerlinaleSecuritateEdward SerottaCommunist Surveillance

Places mentioned

Romania
"He was American and Jewish. He had a camera. That was enough to trigger surveillance by the notorious secret police of communist Romania, the Securitate."
Berlin, Germany
"Plan contraplan/Shot Reverse Shot, which had its world premiere at the Berlinale international film festival last month, gives equal time to Serottas reminiscences about Romania in the 1980s, and to the Securitates observations of him."
Bucharest, Romania
"A man walks past shelves of files compiled by Romanias former Communist regimes Securitate secret police in Bucharest, March 10 2005."
Atlanta, Georgia, United States
"In his narration, Serotta born in 1949 in Atlanta recalls how communist authorities in 1985 had given me the permission to come to Romania under the idea that they would have glowing and fine articles and positive articles about Romania."
Netherlands
"According to the virtual Cryptomuseum, based in the Netherlands, the Securitate had up to 11,000 agents and 500,000 informants monitoring a population of 22 million."

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Cairo Item ID 78343
Cairo Source ID 42
Retrieved 2026-03-24 18:00:30 UTC
Curated 2026-03-24 19:00:39 UTC