Rolling Romanian New Wave Thread

The Romanian poster for THE DEATH OF MR. LAZARESCU is truly astonishing pic.twitter.com/56WMqt1dQY

— R. Emmet Sweeney (@r_emmet) March 27, 2018

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ge3zMQyk4zI

So, not new wave, but we don't have a thread dedicated to Romanian cinema in general. I just learned about this monstrosity, a Romanian-Soviet glam musical film for children that starred a bunch of ballet dancers and ice skaters, and mindblowingly got nominated for the Golden Palm in Cannes, and then went on to became a mainstay Christmas film. In Norway of all places. It seems as if it's still shown on NRK3 each year on December 23.

'Rock'n'Roll Wolf' is kinda the best film title ever

so there is a NYC Romanian retro... what to see aside from the widely seen lodestones? Opinions other than FB's welcome.

https://filmforum.org/series/the-romanians-30-years-of-cinema-revolution#now-playing

think i may go to Puiu's first feature tonight

Hey #filmwitter 💐,
over the past two months I've been working on compiling a top 10 list of the decade's best Romanian films. 31 local critics were polled. These are the results:https://t.co/61hfnSxxvw

— Flavia Dima (@dima_flavia) November 19, 2019

What a list! Crazy to me that I Do Not Care If Go Down In History as Barbarians is higher than Scarred Hearts. Four Jude in top ten is kinda crazy in general, but he is very good. Oh, and the lack of Infinite Football is hurtful :(

Aka here's a list of films 99% of Romanians dgaf about.

When I was at a small film festival in Bucharest (sitting on a jury with Cãtãlin Mitulescu) there was a full house to everything. They didn't seem less interested in weird cinema than people do in Copenhagen?

It's not specific to Romania, that's for sure. I'm just irritated at the prevailing logic: 'Romanian TV is good because I understand what they're saying, Romanian film is bad because it's low budget and terminally boring except when one of our own wins a prize in which case I'll celebrate by actively avoiding the fruit of their labour.' Quebec is the same way, incidentally.

Oh, okay. If it's any consolation, at least Romania keeps winning the good awards. Denmark is just nominated for Oscars for shit films.

Heh, fair enough. Fwiw it's a widespread sentiment among STEM/IT types, who have a bone to pick with non-pop culture whenever the topic comes up.

where is the list of films Romanians gaf about, then?

Mitulescu's most popular film is at that FF fest tonight, but i see it's also free on Amaz0n

where is the list of films Romanians gaf about, then?

Recent American blockbusters, with a smattering of Romanian films from a bygone era to periodically rekindle our patriotism.

pic.twitter.com/87KKO4NDYi

— Matt Prigge (@mattprigge) August 13, 2020

Too bad the premiere was overshadowed by Puiu's bullshit:

https://www.indiewire.com/2020/08/cristi-puiu-goes-on-anti-mask-rant-1234580225/

yeah i couldnt find the link for that

Okay, I know the films I saw this weekend were programmed by the Romanian Cultural Institute to uphold a certain idea of Romanian Cinema. But are ALL films made in Romania as deeply grim as what I just saw? (Man and Dog, Otto the Barbarian, and Miracle.)

Maybe. What did you think of Miracle? Thought of going to see it last week, but didn't make it.

A well-constructed mystery, but if I'd known it was going to be that grim....

Sieranevada is not exactly lighthearted, but I wouldn't call it grim either. It's the last film I saw in a cinema, and it's really a marvel of compression, taking place mostly in one apartment over the course of a few hours. It left me wishing that more filmmakers had the ability to animate stories with such limited means.

Sieranevada is still not available in the US as far as I can see, and it's 6 years after it was released

I hope this won't happen to Memoria but I'm guessing it will

Everybody In Our Family is pretty pitch black comedy but I don't know if I'd call it grim.