Otto the Barbarian - a film by Ruxandra Ghițescu | MakingWaves

Otto the Barbarian

Original title: Otto Barbarul

Ruxandra Ghițescu. 2020, Romania/Belgium, 110 min

The second Romanian film featuring ‘barbarians’ in the title after Radu Jude’s follows a seventeen-year old punk who runs amok after his lover dies. Caught up in a vicious cycle created by his parents who cannot understand him, his mute and demented grandpa, and his girlfriend’s grieving mother, he gets further annoyed by the social worker investigating the tragedy. Unable to articulate his sorrow, he finds refuge in editing old videos of his girlfriend, in what feels like a desperate attempt to resurrect her—and maybe this is where the key to finally accept his guilt and move on lies. It’s an edgy film, and one of the very few local productions dealing with teenage angst, brilliantly capturing that moment when, for a young person, the world seems to have ended.

Part of the 16th Making Waves: New Romanian Cinema

Directed and Written by Ruxandra Ghițescu
Cast: Ioana Bugarin, Ioana Flora, Iulian Postelnicu, Mihaela Sîrbu, Ana Radu, Constantin Drăgănescu
Producer: Iuliana Tarnovetchi
Festivals: European Film Festival Singapore, Sarajevo Film Festival, CinEast, Cottbus Film Festival, U18 Youth Film Competition, Festival of Romanian Films in Chicago, Les Films de Cannes à Bucarest, International Film Festival of India, TIFF
In Romanian with English subtitles. NR

Get a sneak peek at the conversation between actress Ioana Bugarin and Making Waves president Corina Șuteu on OTTO THE BARBARIAN. The full interview is available to stream after the film exclusively on the JBFC Virtual Marquee for ticket and pass holders.

March 25-31, 2022

Purchase individual ticket or festival pass

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."