,,A deceptively simple set-up: the director and his father watch a
1988 football match which the father refereed, their commentary
accompanying the original television images in real time. A Bucharest
derby between the country’s leading teams, Dinamo and Steaua,
taking place in heavy snow, one year before the revolution that
toppled Ceaușescu. The conditions are difficult at best, the play
hardly sparkling. One match among many, the standard game of two
halves, yellow intertitles marking time and grainy video images which
merge with the snow: the perfectly unspectacular basis for a foray into
the conditional. What if the ball hadn’t hit the crossbar? What if the
referee had bowed to pressure and favoured one team? What if the
camera had actually shown the brief ruckus on the pitch? What if the
match had taken place one year later? What if snow had stopped the
game from taking place at all? An endless chain of imaginary second
games spiralling off from the first, each with different images, different
scorelines, different allegiances, and different significances.´´