Gabriel Spahiu
This is Emil’s story, the man who doesn’t believe in ghosts, and his best friend, Titi. The plot unfolds in a remote hamlet, a place looking like a slice of heaven. However, the story begins at the 40-day memorial service for Smaranda, the late wife of Emil. Days pass by, and Emil realizes that Titi looks like his days are numbered. He wants to brighten him up, but nothing helps. That’s because 40 days after her death, Smaranda moves into Titi’s house and starts haunting him.
After a water pipe incident a young couple receives an unexpected visit from their older neighbors. Things get heated and cause the smoldering problems of the couple to come out.
"I do not care if we go down in history as barbarians." These words, spoken in the Council of Ministers of the summer of 1941, started the ethnic cleansing on the Eastern Front. The film attempts to comment on this statement.
During the summer of 1937, Emanuel, a young man in his early twenties, is committed to a sanatorium on the Black Sea coast for treatment of his bone tuberculosis. The treatment consists of painful spine punctures that confine him to a plaster on a stretcher-bed. Little by little, as Emanuel gets accustomed to the sadness of his new life, he discovers that inside the sanatorium there is still a life to be lived to the fullest.
An old man tries to play backgammon with friends while babysitting his granddaughter, who's terrified of the young suicide in their building.
Directed by four different filmmakers and produced by different production companies, these four short films share a common theme - life and death - and a common origin - all four are independent productions made with a little help from all our friends.
A French real estate developer prepares an old Romanian thermal resort for renovation. A Roman fresco in a crypt delays the project, so he tries to burn it down. But he locks himself in a courtyard by mistake. He stays trapped for days, the neighborhood being deserted. He tries communicating with the few remaining residents and changes from a civilized being to a beast, until finding new perspectives. Will he leave the courtyard, or not?
Marius is a divorced man in his late thirties. His five year-old daughter Sofia lives with her mother, which causes Marius a deep frustration. On the day Marius arrives to take his daughter on their annual holiday, he is told that she is ill but he doesn't believe it and insists to take her with him. The situation soon gets out of control with all the family taking part in a web of humor, violence, childish songs, police interventions and love statements.
At the Bucharest Circus, the new young manager is trying to solve the major financial issues of the company by selling its only bear (old and about to die soon) to German hunters. But the artists do not want to sacrifice their favorite animal so the manager decides to steal the bear and run to the mountains to meet the Germans. A crazy road movie starts following the bear.
Considering that his life is a failure, a man records himself leaving a video-message to his loved ones. After this message, which tackles, in funny and sad ways, a lot of issues, both personal and social, he shoots himself in the head. But he fails. And what follows is the a ridiculous and horrific agony, that probably changes the characters' vision about life... A film done basically in one single shot.
It's not just any day at the factory for our shady but somehow admirable hero Iulica (Gabriel Spahiu), Health and Safety Chief, but the morning after the glorious victory of underdogs Steaua Bucharest in the European Champions Cup over the mighty Barcelona - the only Romanian team ever to win it. Everyone, or at least the men, really wants to be celebrating this, but in fact it's Romanian Communist Party Day which is taking centre stage in the works canteen.
A Nazi Luger Pistol from W.W.2 with dark and mystical powers re-emerges in modern day Bucharest and is taken to London. En-route it falls into the hands of a Media Mogul intent on using its power to bring the return of the Forth Reich through Technology and Music .
Velicanu considers himself a fulfilled person. He's got money, a new villa, married a younger woman and has a son from a previous marriage. Before the holidays he has to leave everything in order, but things start to get complicated. The crisis at the end of the day make him wonder whatever he is indeed a happy, fulfilled person...
Mero, a skilled shipyard worker, is a single father. His son Lorenzo, born from a relationship with an Albanian girl, is his only reason for living. The father dreams that the boy will become a champion boxer, to make up for his own anonymous career as an amateur in the ring. This is why he puts him through a tough training program, teaching him day after day to throw punches and protect himself from life's low blows. The balance of this relationship is disturbed by the return of Lorenzo's mother Denisa and by the son's meeting with young Ana. Mero's trials are not over and he must face up to pain, his prejudices and the remoteness of Italy's north east.
Security guard Aurel (Andi Vasluianu) and his wife Irene have a moderately happy marriage and a moderately comfortable lifestyle in urban Romania. Irene takes a working trip to Cairo and returns invigorated with the swell of success. She sets out again and never returns. What follows is both predictable and unpredictable. Aurel, and the audience, are suspicious of the official explanation of her death so the foundation is laid for the traditional who-dunnit. Aurel proceeds on an emotional search against all odds.
Before the war, in Berlin, Adam was an entertainer- cabaret impresario, magician, musician-loved by all until he finds himself in a concentration camp, confronted by Commandant Klein. Adam survives the camp by becoming the Klein's "dog", entertaining him while his wife and daughter are sent off to die. "Adam Resurrected" is the story of a man who once was a dog who meets a dog who once was a boy.
Cover-boy racconta l’amicizia fra Ioan (Eduard Gabia) e Michele (Luca Lionello) l’uno rumeno e l’altro italiano. Due mondi che casualmente s’incontrano: l’esperienza di chi, figlio della rivoluzione post comunista, è fuggito dal proprio paese alla ricerca di un futuro migliore e l’esperienza di chi, precario, vive la crisi del lavoro occidentale.
In a small village of Communist-era Romania a young couple wish to marry, but Joseph Stalin dies the night prior to their wedding ceremony forcing the bride and groom to marry in silence.
A story which might take place in anybody's life. The death of a person starts a chain reaction which involves the neighbours. A satire of the world we live in based on a true story.
Tacke, an old graveyard digger, finds out he has only two months left to live. This is the moment he discovers he does want something out of life: a glamorous funeral service in the cemetery's « downtown » area, where he had spotted for a long time an splendidly situated burial site. Everything goes smoothly, especially that the town's luxury funeral home has just acquired Lady Di's hearth. Tacke has some money for the funeral ceremony, he also has some friends who would mourn for him, but he is out of luck: the funeral site he was hoping to acquire was just given to somebody else.
Cristian Nemescu's comedy unfolds against the backdrop of the Kosovo War, 1999. A NATO train rolls through a Romanian hamlet, transporting a plethora of weapons across the country -- without official documents, and equipped only with the verbal consent of the Romanian authorities. The transport thus grows intensely vulnerable.
An intelligence operative discovers that no one is what they seem in the shadowy world of espionage.
Out of enthusiasm, a Militia soldier abandons his platoon and decides to fight for the cause of the Revolution. His Lieutenant and the rest of the crew look for him during the confused night of 22-23 December 1989.
Andrei, a 13 year old teenager, living on Bucharest outskirts, decides one day to steal a trolleybus in order to impress Marilena, a prostitute he fell in love with.
A BBC adaptation of the Victorian "penny dreadful" tale of 18th century "demon barber" Sweeney Todd, of Fleet Street, who cuts the throats of unsuspecting clients in his London shop.
Mr. Lazarescu is a retired Romanian engineer, spending his time in the company of his cats and booze. When he starts feeling unusually ill, he first seeks painkillers from his neighbors. It soon becomes apparent that Lazarescu is indeed sick, and an ambulance arrives with a nurse who has a few ideas about what could be the problem. However, a major traffic accident and poor organization leaves little room in Romanian hospitals for the fading Lazarescu.
"Occident" is a bitter comedy about the people who want to emigrate from Romania, and about those who stay behind. The movie has a rich, interesting structure: there are three different stories - a weeklong in the film - that cross, interconnect and happen in the same period. The characters influence each others lives, sometimes even without knowing. Main characters from one story become secondary characters in another story. At the same time, scenes from the first part of the movie bring unexpected facts when seen the second or the third time. The stories do not have just one ending: the first story ends in each of the third parts in a different point, suggesting radically different solutions for the characters. The way in which the director fits time and links events together often produces thematically unexpected results.
A fictionalized account of the last days of opera singer Maria Callas (Ardant).
When a sixteen year-old boy and his two young siblings set off on a quest to find their missing parents, their search leads them to a ghost town in the middle of the desert. They soon discover that this is no ordinary tourist spot. In fact, according to the maps, it doesn't exist at all! Finding their way into this mysterious place, the kids must confront the sinister force that dwells beneath it in order to rescue their parents - and save themselves.
A 20 year class reunion, at Snagov, in a villa that belonged to Ceaușescu and now melongs to a media magnate. The reunion is hijacked by a magnatețs son, who makes it into a talk show, in which he humiliates an expat.
The level of disinterest in personal affairs has become so cynical in Bucharest that people cheer even an inept army and police manhunt. Meanwhile, Mitu and Elena get to know each other in the course of a vodka drinking contest and discover that they are both dissatisfied with the status quo. Mitu is about to begin military service and Elena is to be married to a man she does not love. They decide they are meant for each other and plan on a different future, one that is on a collision course with the authorities, and start a mad affair.
The grim realities of daily life in post-Communist Romania are described in this dark drama, which was filmed on-location in the poorer areas of Bucharest. Pepe & Fifi are brother and sister. Pepe is a struggling boxer, and Fifi is a barfly addicted to Bucharest's sleazy night life. This movie chronicles their daily lives while commenting upon the political and economic situation in Romania.
Toni and Simina are two lonely souls on the road who meet by chance in a supermarket parking lot. They immediately like each other and decide to continue their journey together.
