Men of Deeds - a film by Paul Negoescu | MakingWaves

Men of Deeds

Original title: Oameni de treabă

Paul Negoescu. 2022, Romania/Bulgaria, 105 min

U.S. PREMIERE

Q&A with Paul Negoescu and DP Ana Drăghici

A middle-aged police chief goes on with his job and modest life in a small town, dreaming of having an orchard, managing regular drunken conflicts at the local bar and largely ignoring the mayor’s questionable deeds and the dubious things that happen in the village. But when a man is murdered, he jumps to the other extreme, trying to be what he has never been before: the justice seeker who arrests everyone guilty. Fresh from the U.S. success with his indie hit ‘Two Lottery Tickets’, director Negoescu goes into Twin Peaks-like territory and flexes his Coen Brothers’ muscles for what Variety deservedly called “an exceedingly mordant comedy that gradually bleeds out to tragedy”. Expect a hilarious Mexican standoff and one of the best performances in the new Romanian cinema.

Part of the 17th Making Waves: New Romanian Cinema

Directed by Paul Negoescu
Scriptwriters: Radu Romaniuc, Oana Tudor
Director of photography: Ana Drăghici
Cast: Iulian Postelnicu, Anghel Damian, Vasile Muraru, Crina Semciuc, Daniel Busuioc
Producer: Ana Maria Antoci. Co-producer: Poli Angelova
Festivals: Sarajevo FF (Competition), Festival Intl du Film Francophone de Namur (Special Jury Mention, Best Performance Award), Cottbus IFF (Best Actor), Arras IFF (Best Film)
Romanian with English subtitles.
A Dekanalog Release. NR

7:15 pm | BUY TICKETS

Critics’ Corner

Cine-File: A new review of Nae Caranfil`s film (available online)

"DO NOT LEAN OUT THE WINDOW is a boisterous film that looks at the seismic shift in Romanian society with the cautious joy of a caged animal set free. It is a crucial precursor to the revelatory Romanian New Wave that should not be missed."

NY Times: Film Series to Catch in N.Y.C.

"In Romania, the democratic reforms that followed the execution of Nicolae Ceausescu in 1989 also turned the country into a global filmmaking powerhouse, culminating in what has been called the Romanian New Wave."

NYRB: J. Hoberman recommends

"These thirty films also include some of the best made anywhere during the past three decades."

MW public – Andrei Codrescu: “In Praise of New Romanian Film”

The New Wave festival returns to New York every year with astonishing new films, alongside a well-curated archive. I wouldn't miss it for the world.

J.B. Spins: “Luxury Hotel” – For fans of dystopian social satire

"Luxury Hotel could have probably only been produced during the immediate post-Ceausescu aftermath, when the palace was available, in all its faded grandeur. It is definitely spectacle, but serious, distinctively pointed spectacle."

Screenslate: “The Autobiography of N. Ceaușescu”- conceived as a flashback

"And now it is our turn, all these decades later, to be the ones to look and learn."

J.B. Spins: “The Oak” – Deeply compelling cinema

"The Oak is a defiantly bold, chaotically head-spinning indictment of Ceausescu Socialism, but it is also deeply compelling cinema. This is definitely auteurist cinema from Pintilie that still connects on a profoundly human level."

The Criterion Collection: Romanians… in America

"Film Forum will be showcasing thirty Romanian films made during the thirty years since the overthrow and execution of iron-fisted dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu."

„The Romanian New Wave shows no signs of waning, with steady input from such directors as Corneliu Porumboiu, Cristi Puiu, and Cristian Mungiu."

„The former communist country has emerged as a powerhouse of cinema over the last two decades and much has been made about the Romanian New Wave, a genre of naturalistic and unflinching films that have been consistently winning top prizes such as the Palme d’Or in Cannes and awards at the Berlin and Venice festivals.”

The New York Times

„In the last decade, the emergence of a Romanian new wave has been one of the most startling developments in world cinema, with one film after another winning prizes at Cannes and elsewhere.”

The Wall Street Journal

"Making Waves: New Romanian Cinema, the annual weeklong survey that has helped define and establish the southeastern European country as a stronghold of socially incisive, independently minded personal cinema.”

The Wall Street Journal

„Romania cinema has gradually become a central component of international film culture."