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DOR (LONGING) enables us to share moments of encounter between some very ground­ed char­ac­ters, a group of young shep­herds in Roma­nia– and a person in a moment of being in limbo and tran­si­tion, their appren­tice Stefan. Stefan is quite lost, but also in search for some­thing. He has returned to Roma­nia after having lived in Bel­gium, to start a new life as a shep­herd. Stefan and the local shep­herds are very dif­fer­ent kinds of people, but they find ways to relate with each other. While Stefan knows how to get a tattoo done for the local guys and tags their names with graf­fi­ti on stones in the middle of nowhere, the young shep­herds help him to know his way around in the new envi­ron­ment. 

This medium-length film might appear long and slow to some audi­ences, because it does not follow a very par­tic­u­lar story with a con­ven­tion­al red thread. How­ev­er, exact­ly this is the strength of this film. It medi­ates a strong immer­sive atmos­phere through its pacing, rhythm, sound-design and its dreamy melan­cholic images. There­by, the film seems to speak about how the pro­tag­o­nist Stefan feels in a moment of uncer­tain­ty. DOR (LONGING) is an evoca­tive film. After all, it pro­vokes emo­tions and brings the pro­tag­o­nist close to us, while pro­vid­ing at the same time large space to wonder and reflect, as it also leaves us in the dark and does not reveal every­thing. 

(Thomas John)