Waves Penetrate Me Fiercely watches like a fever dream. Opening with a group of friends pre-drinking in a brutalist Soviet-era apartment complex, the video soon collapses into a flurry of neon-lit images: a finger stretches across a golden-hour skyline, a speakeasy becomes the home to an impromptu karaoke session, and a series of corridors suddenly open out to reveal a DJ-set in an abandoned office. It's a dream-like vision, but according to Geo Aghinea, the film’s 24-year-old trans director, this is exactly what partying in Bucharest is like – or, rather, what it has to be for many of its queer inhabitants. 

“Romania is a post-Communist country so, as a generation, we’ve had no culture that celebrates freedom of expression,” says Aghinea, a musician and sound designer who relocated from their small Romanian hometown of Târgu Ocna to the country’s capital at age 16. “It’s all very homogenous. Everyone was taught to dress and act the same way in the Soviet Union. To this day, there’s only one gay bar in the whole city.”

Instead, Aghinea explains, queer partygoers often find themselves drawn to improvised spaces in Bucharest’s numerous abandoned apartment complexes – so-called ‘red-coded buildings’ that are scheduled for demolition, but have since become home to a range of underground bars, clubs and art collectives.

“People in the queer community tend not to go out in the day because they’d get harrassed,” Aghinea continues, referencing a recent incident where a non-binary friend had rocks thrown at them on the street. “The community mainly existed in the night and via word of mouth. But the community is very strong. I don’t want to say this, but, you know, people under pressure form very strong bonds.” 

Crucially, however, these pressures are absent from much of the film. Instead, Waves Penetrate Me depicts a community with a near-utopian level of freedom as they frolic from one industrial space to another – speaking to a sense of ‘mystery and danger’ that Aghinea says they’ve yet to encounter since moving to London. It’s only in the closing moments of the video, as the group of partygoers sit down for breakfast in a traditional Romanian restaurant and the glare of daylight creeps back in, that reality returns. “That shot was to show the contrast between their freedom and how the world actually is back there,” Aghinea explains. “The owner was looking at us a bit strangely. We didn’t give him the details of the shoot because, if we did, he probably would’ve said no.”

The video is a particularly personal project for Aghinea, who encountered many of the queer partygoers in the video while living alone in Bucharest eight years ago. “It was a very exploratory period for me,” they explain. “I’m from a small village, so it was the time that I really got to know myself which is very special to me. There was one queer-friendly bar that everyone used to go to and I started chatting to people there. One night, I ended up at a disused bunker on the edge of the city. It was like that a lot – you would end up in really unexpected locations.” 

More than just their own journey of self-discovery through raving, however, the title Waves Penetrate Me Fiercely contains an additional layer of meaning for Aghinea. “At four years old I was diagnosed with hearing loss,” they explain. “At the time, the doctors were encouraging my parents to not let me do music. They were like, ‘They’re going to lose their hearing, it’s not safe’. I currently wear hearing aids but, if my hearing gets any worse, I’ll have to wear cochlear implants, which send electrical impulses directly into your brain and totally change the way you experience sound and music. I think that’s why I’m trying so hard with music, because I could lose my hearing at any time.”

Aghinea recalls the countless times they would wake up after a night out in Bucharest’s abandoned backrooms wrought with tinnitus and anxiety, but, ultimately, it’s a time they look back on fondly. It was the first time that Aghinea discovered a community they could call their own, and where they first encountered electronic music. “I was just so dedicated to finding myself,” they conclude with a bittersweet smile. Pressure forms strong bonds indeed. 

Catch some exclusive behind-the-scenes photos from the shoot in the gallery above. 

Aghinea is supporting Imogen Heap at Camden Roundhouse April 17th, grab tickets here.