Perspectives on History: Romanian Cinema Since 1989

December 6, 2019–February 27, 2020

Thirty years after the fall of the Ceauşescu regime, this series samples the best in Romanian cinema from the last three decades.

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  • The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceauşescu

  • The Oak

  • I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians

  • Stuff and Dough

  • 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days

  • Upcoming
    Films
  • Upcoming
    Events
  • Selected
    Objects
  • Past
    Films
  • Past
    Events

Past Films

  • I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians

    • Thursday, February 27 7 PM
    Radu Jude
    Romania, 2018

    Radu Jude dissects the rise of neofascism and the reemergence of anti-Semitism in Europe in this metafictional black comedy. “A complicated meditation on the responsibilities—and limits—of art in the face of horror” (New York Times).

  • Soldiers: A Story from Ferentari

    • Sunday, February 23 7 PM
    Ivana Mladenović
    Romania, 2017

    Two men form an unlikely couple in one of Bucharest’s toughest Romany neighborhoods in this naturalist drama, a gay, Romany Romeo and Juliet.

  • The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceauşescu

    • Sunday, February 16 12:30 PM
    Andrei Ujica
    Romania, 2010

    A portrait of a nation—and a cult of personality—through found footage, Ujică’s dissection of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu’s media masquerade is “a cinematic tour de force” (New York Times).

    CANCELED: Andrei Ujică in Person

  • Out of the Present

    • Thursday, February 13 7 PM
    Andrei Ujica
    Russia, 1995

    Ujică’s Russian-made precursor to The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceauşescu uses found footage to revisit the tale of a Soviet cosmonaut whose time in space corresponded with the sudden downfall of the Soviet Union.

    CANCELED: Andrei Ujică in Person

  • Videograms of a Revolution

    • Wednesday, February 12 7 PM
    Andrei Ujica, Harun Farocki
    Germany, 1992

    The infamous televised speech Nicolae Ceauşescu delivered on the night his regime fell in 1989 is the centerpiece of this sophisticated investigation of the power of images.

    CANCELED: Andrei Ujică in Person

  • Child’s Pose

    • Sunday, February 2 7 PM
    Călin Peter Netzer
    Romania, 2013

    Grand prize winner at the 2013 Berlin Film Festival, this “ferocious psychological drama with the pace of a thriller” (Los Angeles Times) follows an upper-class Bucharest architect who’ll stop at nothing to keep her grown son out of jail. 

  • The Paper Will Be Blue

    • Saturday, January 25 5:30 PM
    Radu Muntean
    Romania, 2006

    A clueless tank crew wanders Bucharest’s chaotic streets on the night that Ceauşescu falls in Radu Muntean’s wry, humanist portrait of historic times.

  • The State of Things

    • Sunday, January 19 7 PM
    Stere Gulea
    Romania, 1995

    A hospital nurse speaks out against the corruption of the secret police—and pays the price—in this uncompromising examination of immorality, revolution, and social conviction. “One of the most powerful accounts of the Romanian Revolution” (Film Society of Lincoln Center).

  • The Oak

    • Sunday, January 12 7 PM
    Lucian Pintilie
    Romania, 1992

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    A strong-willed Bucharest schoolteacher finds herself adrift and assaulted in Pintilie’s blisteringly apocalyptic farce of the last days of Ceauşescu’s rule, fueled by an “imaginative hysteria that rattles with sustained fury” (J. Hoberman).

  • 12:08 East of Bucharest

    • Sunday, December 15 7 PM
    Corneliu Porumboiu
    Romania, 2006

    A provincial TV talk show turns into a battle over the history of the Romanian revolution in Porumboiu’s hilarious allegory, winner of the Caméra d’Or at Cannes.

  • The Death of Mr. Lazarescu

    • Friday, December 13 7 PM
    Cristi Puiu
    Romania, 2005

    Puiu’s saga of the last hours in the life of a cranky Bucharest widower is “both sad and darkly funny . . . sharply conceived and richly populated” (Chicago Reader). “A thorny masterpiece” (New York Times).

  • Stuff and Dough

    • Sunday, December 8 7 PM
    Cristi Puiu
    Romania, 2001

    A hopeful young entrepreneur decides to raise money by delivering an unknown package in this deadpan road movie, inspired by Jarmusch’s Down by Law. The debut film by the director of The Death of Mr. Lazarescu. 

  • 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days

    • Friday, December 6 7 PM
    Cristian Mungiu
    Romania, 2007

    Two young women go underground to terminate an unwanted pregnancy in this gripping, prizewinning drama. “Beautifully realistic, faultlessly made” (Los Angeles Times).