A charcoal maker and his wife in Transylvania have become an attraction for tourists keen to take pictures of real poverty, while they themselves are dreaming of the Caribbean ... a caustic satire.
In rural Romania, people take care of their graves while they’re still alive, especially the photo on the tombstone. Dressed to the nines forever!
A ton of cabbage for 20 Euros: the peasants in the Romanian community of Lunguleţu underbid each other with the prices for their products. Is there a way out of this dead end?
The cinema Dacia in provincial Romania and Mr. Purice: a Don Quixote fighting against privatisation and digitisation, for his audience and – the dream of cinema.
The protagonists or rather heroes of this first film by Adina Pintilie are inhabitants of a psychiatric home in Romania.
A delicate attempt at a biography of the 20th century in Romania. At the age of 92, Licu has seen a lot, and this quiet portrait provides a space for him and his story.
Marona-Sara-Ana-the-Ninth is of noble descent, but not a princess. She was given her names by her master and mistress. The modern fairytale about a dog raises questions of identity.
An architectural and ideological tour through five emblematic buildings of the socialist era, to superlative stone bodies. A journey into the past of a future.
What do you need for a revolution? Lots of alcohol, a few sickles and shotguns and an opponent in the cornfield... Autum 1989 in the Carpathian Mountains, straight from the source.
Her son’s daily phone call and regular baths are among the elderly woman’s favourite pastimes. Immersing herself in the water she finds lightness.
“Sometimes I feel I wasn’t made for these times.” This laconic statement of the protagonist of Anca Damian’s second animated documentary defines his position early in the narrative: somehow off kilter. Adam Jacek Winkler, Polish photographer, anti-communist dissident, mountain climber and artist, is a restless spirit, always on the lookout for the noble cause worth fighting and dying for. A modern Don Quixote, whose obsession takes him to Afghanistan where he joins the Mujahidin’s fight against the Red Army. It’s a romantic and torn hero the director portrays here, combining material from Winkler’s personal archive (photos, sketches, videos) with the stylistic wealth of artistic animation, including collages, graphically distorted film and photo material, drawings, plasticine animations or simply painted paper folded into mountains. The various techniques address the various situations, managing to translate the protagonist’s emotional world into a highly original filmic reality, sometimes surreal, sometimes absurd and bitter. “The Magic Mountain” is the second part of a planned trilogy about modern heroes whose third and last instalment this cinematic experience gives us every reason to look forward to. Mattias Heeder
MDR Film Prize 2015
A Romanian princess, a royal train and the drudgery of the representation business, somewhere between k. u. k. ceremonial and new marketing visions.
Three kids on their own in Bucharest’s Roma ghetto. Poverty and drugs, but a youth centre offers a refuge. Can you beat fate? A hopeful drama.
Pintilie drops a transgression project about the exploration of shame and the body right into the unbearable social norm. The act: sexuality. The aim: (self) liberation. Golden Bear 2018.
