Skip to main content
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • ’Cuse Conversations Podcast
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
Arts & Culture
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • University Statements
  • Syracuse University Impact
  • |
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
Sections
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • University Statements
  • Syracuse University Impact
  • |
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • ’Cuse Conversations Podcast
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
Arts & Culture

Film Student Inspired by Human Connection

Wednesday, December 16, 2015, By Kathleen Haley
Share
College of Visual and Performing Arts
Ioana Turcan immerses herself with the people she films. Photo by Sean Henry-Smith

Ioana Turcan immerses herself with the people she films. Photo by Sean D. Henry-Smith

While attending college in her home country of Romania, Ioana Turcan G’17 befriended a family of cemetery caretakers who lived near her home.

A close-knit, caring group made up of several generations, they welcome her for weekend visits and holidays. They are her neighbors and friends who she misses when she’s in America.

They are also Roma, often referred to by the derogatory term “gypsies.”

A group typically on the outskirts of society, the Roma have been persecuted for centuries in Europe, where intolerance still remains for a people with strong family ties and cultural traditions.

Turcan, a graduate film student in the Department of Transmedia in the College of Visual and Performing Arts, wanted to find out more about their lives and spent a year documenting them for her film “The Other Life of Charon.”

“I just wanted to go beyond the image delivered by the media, to get and offer another perspective,” Turcan says.

The Other Life of Charon

Ioana Turcan’s film, “The Other Life of Charon,” is her thesis project and has been selected for European film festivals.

The process of making this film, which is her thesis project and has been selected for European film festivals, is emblematic of how she immerses herself with the people she films, driven by her curiosity to know people, not just with a goal to make a film.

“There is a human connection,” Turcan says. “You can learn from people. It’s a link to languages and culture. I don’t see that as a job; it’s a way of living.”

A life in film

Turcan, who earned her undergraduate degree in cinematography and a master’s degree in documentary filmmaking in Romania, first got an inkling about filmmaking while making a short film to promote her school in ninth grade for a contest. Her team won the contest and with it a trip to Italy.

“I realized you can travel and meet people and have a direct learning process. That’s what I want to do,” Turcan says.

Turcan, who came to Syracuse her first year on a Fulbright Scholarship, found inspiration for another recent project while previously working in Rhode Island hotels on a work and travel program.

The short film, “Little Father,” tells the fictional story of an undocumented Iranian man in the United States who has to decide whether to go back to his homeland for his father’s funeral. If something happens there and he cannot come back, he has to think about what would happen to his family in the United States.

film crew

Ioana Turcan works with the cast and crew on the set of her film “Little Father.”

The film was shot last spring, using Syracuse University students who spoke Farsi but who are not professional actors. Turcan, who wrote the script, directed the film and shot part of it, also received a Creative Opportunity Grant through the college for the project, which will be used to submit to festivals.

Cannes Film Festival

Last spring the film, which included credits for Syracuse University, was selected to be part of the Romania New Wave Program in the Cannes Film Festival for the Short Film Corner.

“It was a good feeling to be selected because you’re representing Syracuse University and your country, and you’re telling a story that isn’t directly related to your culture,” says Turcan, who is a teaching assistant and instructional assistant, working with Owen Shapiro, the Shaffer Professor of Film and coordinator of the film program.

little father still3

The short film “Little Father” tells the fictional story of an undocumented Iranian man in the United States who has to decide whether to go back to his homeland for his father’s funeral.

It has also been part of the New Filmmakers Showcase at the 2015 Syracuse International Film Festival; Euroshorts, in Warsaw, Poland; and screened across Romania, Berlin and the Republic of Moldova.

Her video “The Self Illusion” was shown at the 2015 Filmul de Piatra in Romania and at Euroshorts. Another video, “Crafted,” was selected for the 2015 Festival Transterritorial de Cine Underground, Buenos Aires, and was included in the 2015 Art Film Festival Cannes Catalogue.

More recently, “The Other life of Charon” was shown for distribution in Switzerland and Spain and invited for a competition in the Czech Republic. Although the 40-minute film was shot in Romania, Turcan worked on the sound while at Syracuse.

Greek god

Turcan hopes the film, which is titled after the Greek god who ferries the deceased over the river Styx, shows the Roma as people who earn a living and are incredible craftsmen and musicians—and even though they live outside of society, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. “It doesn’t make them bad or good; they just live differently,” she says.

The film also led Turcan to create an installation of photos, sound and video, titled “My Gypsy Relatives,” for Spark Contemporary Art Space in Syracuse last year.

Turcan has also taken her passion for film and channeled it into a nonprofit organization, B4Film, with two friends in Romania, which seeks funding to work with film students. This past summer, they assisted in a summer film camp at her former university with workshops and helped students produce two short films.

Milk Usage Station

Milk Usage Station2

The students’ installation, “Milk Usage Station,” conveys the idea of cultural heritage, family lineage and cyclicity.

This semester at Syracuse she collaborated with two students, Rohan Thakore and Lily Fein, for the “Modern Primitive Exchange (MPEx): Food” class with Ed Morris, professor of practice in the transmedia department. MPEx is a forum for design and ideas through the end times, and the class focuses on issues relating to the production, distribution and consumption of food.

The students’ installation, “Milk Usage Station,” conveys the idea of cultural heritage, family lineage and cyclicity and was on display in Smith Hall Gallery.

Although she doesn’t have definite plans for the future, Turcan, who is also a competitor on the University’s boxing team, would like to produce films and maybe one day teach.

“You never know what opportunity will come,” she says.

 

  • Author

Kathleen Haley

  • Recent
  • Newhouse Creative Advertising Students Win Big at Sports and Entertainment Clios
    Friday, May 30, 2025, By News Staff
  • Syracuse University Libraries’ Information Literacy Scholars Produce Information Literacy Collab Journal
    Thursday, May 29, 2025, By Cristina Hatem
  • Syracuse Spirit on Display: Limited-Edition Poster Supports Future Generations
    Thursday, May 29, 2025, By News Staff
  • Timur Hammond’s ‘Placing Islam’ Receives Journal’s Honorable Mention
    Tuesday, May 27, 2025, By News Staff
  • Syracuse University, Lockerbie Academy Reimagine Partnership, Strengthen Bond
    Friday, May 23, 2025, By News Staff

More In Arts & Culture

Syracuse Stage Hosts Inaugural Julie Lutz New Play Festival

Syracuse Stage is pleased to announce that the inaugural Julie Lutz New Play Festival will be held at the theatre this June. Formerly known as the Cold Read Festival of New Plays, the festival will feature a work-in-progress reading and…

Light Work Opens New Exhibitions

Light Work has two new exhibitions, “The Archive as Liberation” and “2025 Light Work Grants in Photography, that will run through Aug. 29. “The Archive as Liberation” The exhibition is on display in the Kathleen O. Ellis Gallery at Light…

Spelman College Glee Club to Perform at Return to Community: A Sunday Gospel Jazz Service June 29

As the grand finale of the 2025 Syracuse International Jazz Fest, the Spelman College Glee Club of Atlanta will perform at Hendricks Chapel on Sunday, June 29. The Spelman College Glee Club, now in its historic 100th year, is the…

Alumnus, Visiting Scholar Mosab Abu Toha G’23 Wins Pulitzer Prize for New Yorker Essays

Mosab Abu Toha G’23, a graduate of the M.F.A. program in creative writing in the College of Arts and Sciences and a current visiting scholar at Syracuse University, has been awarded the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for a series of essays…

School of Architecture Faculty Pablo Sequero Named Winner of 2025 Architectural League Prize

School of Architecture faculty member Pablo Sequero’s firm, salazarsequeromedina, has been named to the newest cohort of winners in the biennial Architectural League Prize for Young Architects + Designers, one of North America’s most prestigious awards for young practitioners. “An…

Subscribe to SU Today

If you need help with your subscription, contact sunews@syr.edu.

Connect With Us

  • X
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
Social Media Directory

For the Media

Find an Expert Follow @SyracuseUNews
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
  • @SyracuseU
  • @SyracuseUNews
  • Social Media Directory
  • Accessibility
  • Privacy
  • Campus Status
  • Syracuse.edu
© 2025 Syracuse University News. All Rights Reserved.