Category: Lightbox Film Center Philadelphia, PA | MakingWaves

The Romanians: 30 Years of Cinema Revolution

Lightbox Film Center Philadelphia, PA

U.S. Tour/Streaming

The Lightbox Film Center in Philadelphia was scheduled to join the retrospective tour with a selection running March 12-27, 2020.

Even though the screenings in cinemas had to be postponed, we continue our partnership and co-present some titles in virtual cinema, starting May 29, 2020.

Videograms of a Revolution

Schedule

Andrei Ujică & Harun Farocki. 1992, Germany, 106 min

For Videograms of a Revolution, Andrei Ujică and Harun Farocki collected amateur video and material broadcast by Romanian state television after it was taken over by demonstrators in December 1989. The audio and video represent the first revolution in which television played a major role. The film’s protagonist is contemporary history itself.
"By the end of the week, and the Ceausescus’ executions, nothing is real – or historical – until it is seen on television.” – Michael Atkinson, The Village Voice

Director Andrei Ujica in person (Film Forum, Nov 15, 6:30 pm / BAMPFA, Feb 12)

Lightbox Film Center Philadelphia, PA

Mar 12, 2020
7:00 pm POSTPONED

Schedule

Lucian Pintilie. 1992, Romania/France, 105 min

The Oak is an absorbing, complicated black comedy about Romania at the end of the Ceauşescu regime. A young schoolteacher named Nela embarks on a spiritual journey following the death of her father, a former government official, whose ashes she carries with her in a coffee jar. During her wanderings through grotesque and often violent surroundings, she meets Mitică. The couple, like Tristan and Isolde at the gates of the Orient, cannot pursue their love without disruption. A series of events – floods, pollution, Mitică’s arrest, military maneuvers and massacres – split up our heroes, and reveal a backdrop in which nothing works properly and everything seems to be falling apart. NEW 4K RESTORATION

Actress Maia Morgenstern in person (Mar 13, Lightbox Film Center Philadelphia)

Lightbox Film Center Philadelphia, PA

Mar 13, 2020
7:00 pm POSTPONED

Snails’ Senator

Schedule

Mircea Daneliuc. 1995, Romania, 112 min

Senator Vîrtosu (Dorel Vișan) spends the weekend at a guesthouse formerly owned by the Communist Party, where in true communist tradition, he’s presented with gifts from its employees and petitions from the local villagers. However, his relaxing weekend is disrupted by a crew of Swiss journalists filming in the area. Vîrtosu cooperates with them, trying to make sure the reporters present his country in a favorable light, while hiding certain details from them. This Cannes competition entry reframes Mircea Daneliuc's 1980 The Cruise against the backdrop of a society in transition and adds apocalyptic and Dostoevskian accents to the depravity and penance of the main villain: the Communist Party activist turned member of a democratic parliament. Daneliuc’s film is a fierce political satire that thankfully doesn’t concern itself with delivering a positive image of Romania.

Lightbox Film Center Philadelphia, PA

Mar 20, 2020
7:00 pm POSTPONED

The Death of Mr Lăzărescu

Schedule

Cristi Puiu. 2005, Romania, 154 min

The film that, for many people, signaled the emergence of the new Romanian cinema, Cristi Puiu’s second feature was a revelation at Cannes 2005, where it took top prize in the Un Certain Regard section. A sardonic, darkly humorous, compulsively vibrant feature, The Death of Mr Lăzărescu seems so realistic and convincing, unfolding as though in real time, that it’s hard to believe it was acted. As it follows an ailing retired engineer, too fond of booze, who gets carted from one overtaxed Bucharest hospital to another in search of proper medical care, a whole stressed society is laid bare: Each doctor, nurse, paramedic and patient leaps into view with individuality and articulate self-defensiveness. Compassion and indifference clash, often within the same person. The fluid, mobile camera recalls the great works of Fred Wiseman and John Cassavetes.

Lightbox Film Center Philadelphia, PA

Mar 21, 2020
3:00 pm POSTPONED

12:08 East of Bucharest

Schedule

Corneliu Porumboiu. 2006, Romania, 89 min

Winner of the 2006 Camera D’Or prize, this socio-political satire focuses on a group of characters who commemorate the 16th anniversary of Ceaușescu’s fall on December 22, 2005. “12:08” refers to the exact time of day when Ceaușescu fled, whereas the original Romanian title roughly translates as “Was There or Was There Not?” (a revolution in our town) – the central question being hotly debated throughout the film. What seems like a formally simple and straightforward story is actually a sophisticated and wryly funny reflection on the scope of the 1989 revolution, and how even recent historical events take on different shapes and meanings in explaining or justifying the present.

Lightbox Film Center Philadelphia, PA

Mar 21, 2020
7:00 pm POSTPONED

Crulic – the Path to Beyond

Schedule

Anca Damian. 2011, Romania/Poland, 73 min

This chilling documentary is “narrated” by Claudiu Crulic, a young Romanian in Poland who was arrested for a crime he didn’t commit, only to become a pawn in a Kafkaesque miscarriage of justice that resulted in his death from a hunger strike. Combining innovative hand-drawn, cutout and collage animation techniques, director Anca Damian crafts a devastating portrait of a man who stood up to an uncaring bureaucracy – and paid the ultimate price

Lightbox Film Center Philadelphia, PA

Mar 26, 2020
7:00 pm POSTPONED

Schedule

Radu Jude. 2015, Romania/Bulgaria /Czech Republic, 105 min

“Shot in richly toned, wide-screen black and white, Aferim! looks like an elegant exercise in period playacting. But it casts a fierce, revisionist eye on the past, finding the cruelty and prejudice that lie beneath the pageantry.” - The New York Times. Radu Jude’s international breakthrough is a picaresque odyssey through 19th-century Romania, which tackles one of the most shameful episodes in the country’s history: the enslavement of the Roma people. As a bounty hunter and his son scour the mountains for a fugitive slave, they are thrown into a series of encounters by turns scathingly funny or utterly horrifying. Stunningly shot in glimmering, widescreen black and white, Aferim! plays like a classic western spring-loaded with cutting social commentary.

Lightbox Film Center Philadelphia, PA

Mar 27, 2020
7:00 pm POSTPONED