In a small event hall, a woman in traditional costume begins playing a melody on a tambal (hammered dulcimer). The quirky, clever and shrewd greeting that Radu Jude is sending us from his homeland to Vienna soon becomes clear. It is the Tritsch-Tratsch Polka by Johann Strauss, which the folk musician Nicoleta Tudorache, who is famous in Romania, performs with verve – and which has certainly never been heard in this rendition. But what is the intellectual joker Radu Jude, who never shies away from a satirical jab, up to? Is it appreciation? A joke? An allusion to the debates on cultural appropriation?
