Valentin is twentyfive years old and lives in Paris. He grew up in Bucharest before moving to Belgium as a teenager. He is one of the kids in the documentary ‘Gara de Nord: copii per strada’ shot by Antonio Martino in 2005. At the time Bucharest was full of abandoned kids who forgot their troubles by sniffing Aurolac, a noxious paint, from a plastic bag they always carried with them. Many would hide in the tunnels of the sewers near the railway station.
Valentin was one of them back then. His life changed when he was adopted by a Belgian couple who managed to give him a normal life.Then, by chance, he saw the documentary on YouTube, and saw himself as a street kid. He contacted Antonio via Facebook and they decided to pick up the story of Valentin’s life and go back to Romania. In the past, he had already gone back to take his two brothers away. But he still needed to find his mother whom he hasn’t seen since he was little, his sister, his friends from the sewers and Marcel with whom he spent so much time then. But above all… to look for a daughter, Eliza, whom he had with a Romanian woman and whom he has never seen…
Valentin, son of Europe by Antonio Martino, produced by Partner Media Investment, is one of the projects of MIA|DOC Pitching Forum at MIA Market 2017. To find out more on this and all the other projects, click here.
