Life Like Laughing

A typesetter is in search of an anonymous hero that saved two children.

Ion is the head of workers' team who install high-voltage lines in the mountains. He discovers a design error that could put many lives in jeopardy and knows that the chief designer is Valeria, his ex-girlfriend from adolescent days.

Andrei Blaier's film catches the last days of The Stone Cross a low class brothels area that became some kind of an institution in the landscape of Bucharest before the Communist period, doomed to destruction under the new rules of proletarian morals that the Communists were trying to impose. The idea could be the start of a great film, with the prostitution being seen not so much from its destructive and exploitation perspective, but rather as a form of freedom in a time when the whole society was falling under the rule of propaganda, hypocrisy, and repression. In a world due to fall under tyranny for the coming decades prostitution becomes a metaphor of the old more free way of life.

A young man leaves home after graduation from high school to make his way in the world and seek his independence. The story is told in flashbacks as the opening scene shows the man suffering injuries from a fall during his construction job as a welder.

Neagu's father appears unexpectedly as he and his family prepare to leave for vacation. He is having an argument with his wife, so his father, feeling unwelcome, leaves. split between his family and his father, he tries to make the best of it.

The Nazi troops are retreating from Romania. On a wester town, they have to be held back until some strategic trains can leave the train station.

The story takes place early in the 20th century in Eastern Romania, where a famous outlaw lived kind of a Clyde with many Bonnies legend in the landscape of the Danube Delta.

Sandu, a player, asks his friend to keep company to one of his conquests for a few hours. But then hours turn to a few days, and the two get to know each other better. Acting debut for Valeria Seciu.

A war story. survivors. refugees. few essential meetings. and great actors. a film inspired from Zaharia Stancu short story. about pain, search of sense in misty times, about roots of evil and price of survive, about a country as shadow and ruins of a empire. all in dark nuances, touching images. a movie like a ballad. heavy, strange, profound, harsh, cruel. with few drops of feelings as steps of rotten ladder. looks, silhouettes, way to ambiguous home. a thief and a young man. across Balkans. among ash of a fragile territory. the impressive aspect - silence. and gestures. the woman, the train. the escape. the bath. and the death of Diplomat. all - fragments of an old way to discover reality. all - words of a new world.