BOGDAN MURESANU | ROMANIA, SERBIA | 2024 | 138 MIN | ROMANIAN
Scrounging for rations and dark alley run-ins with the secret police are regular occurrences for Romanian citizens in December 1989, under the Communist dictatorship of Nicolae Ceau?escu. Despite the fall of the Berlin Wall a month prior, no one is celebrating—including a bumbling trio behind the state-controlled TV station tasked with creating a tacky Christmas propaganda special commending Ceau?escu’s reign, and the liberal actress forced to abandon her theater production to perform in this special after the star flees the country. These are just a sample of the eclectic characters that populate Bogdan Mur?anu’s farcical Venice Horizons Award-winning tragicomedy about the last days before the Romanian Revolution. Taking cues from the crumbling political house of cards that satirist Armando Iannucci built with In the Loop and Veep, Mursanu madly plows his way through intertwining stories depicting the real-life despair of Romanian dictatorship with a grimacing wink. As the absurdity mounts toward an inevitable conclusion, this debut feature from Mur?anu cements the filmmaker as an exciting new voice in Romanian cinema in the lineage of satirists like Corneliu Porumboiu and Radu Jude.
Cast: Adrian Vancica, Iulian Postelnicu, Emilia Dobrin, Nicoleta Hâncu
All sales are final. Admission is not guaranteed after scheduled start time.
Click HERE for more information about the 33rd Philadelphia Film Festival