EAST OF BUCHAREST Romania 2006 Comedy 99 min
Director: Corneliu Porumboiu Cast: Mircea Andreescu, Teodor Corban, Ion Sapdaru Awards: Camera D'Or and Label Europa Cinema at Cannes 2006, Best Film and Screenplay at Copenhagen International Film Festival 2006, Best Directing, Best Screenplay, Best Actor, Best Feature at Gopo Film Awards 2007
Corneliu Porumboiu’s acutely funny satirical comedy is set sixteen years after the Romanian revolution that overturned communism. Three characters in the small town of Vaslui come together to find an answer to the question: was there or wasn’t it there a revolution in Vaslui?
In the first half of the film, we meet the three main characters: a widower, a history professor and a television show host. The second half follows the trio to the local television studio, where they enter a live debate about the role the town played in the revolution. What were the people of Vaslui doing while Ceausescu was being thrown out in a violent revolt? Were there heroes, dissenters and change makers in Vaslui?
The carefully calibrated writing and the underplayed performances make for a very exciting film, which put Porumboiu on the international map and led the charge of recent Romanian cinema.
Book tickets for this screening.
Screening at Performance Space at The Dock, 107 Victoria Harbour Promenade, Docklands.
