ArtsHub

Bibliothèque Pascal Berlin International Film Festival (most actors are Romanians) "No, no! The adventures first, explanations take such a dreadful time." One could be tempted to think that Mona Paparu, who has to tell her story to the child protective services to get back custody of her young daughter, has been given advice by the impatient Gryphon from "Alice in Wonderland". Her depiction of the happenings of the past three years wrenches the viewer into an adventure where love, crime, clairvoyance, resurrection of the dead, women-trafficking and a literary S/M brothel have no small part to play. Hajdu wraps this story of a single East European mother, who ends up working as a prostitute in Liverpool, in bright colors. With wonderfully kitsch special effects, slow and dreamy tracking shots and a hypnotizing soundtrack, he brings cinema back to where it was once at home – back to the fun fair where a story is allowed to be imaginative and captivating, not bound by the constraints of authenticity, as is Mona Paparu. Leaving mother and daughter to live happily ever after in our uniformly furnished world, which at times makes us all want to dream away. Sometimes even at the movies. (http://www.berlinale.de/en/programm/berlinale_programm/datenblatt.php?film_id=20106241)

Eu cand vreu sa fluier, fluier (If I want to whistle, I whistle) - Berlin International Film Festival (favorite for the Golden Bear award) Silviu, a young delinquent, is about to be released from reform school. Only five days to go. But ever since he learned that his mother has suddenly reappeared on the scene after a long absence and is determined to take his young brother away to live with her, these five days have seemed like an eternity. Silviu himself has raised his little brother and loves him as if he were his own son. During his time behind bars Silviu has met and fallen head over heels in love with a young social worker who is studying psychology. Time is running out and his anxiety about his brother begins to turn into panic. Without a moment’s hesitation, he decides to kidnap Ana and run away with her. Once outside he gets his first taste of freedom: the wind in his hair, the open road – and his first kiss. Everything and anything seems possible. The male lead in this adaptation of a stage play by Romanian author Andreea Vălean is played by a nonprofessional, George Piştereanu, who is a high school pupil from Bucharest. He and the other members of the cast were chosen during a period of auditions that lasted six months. Among those given roles were a number of juvenile delinquents from a reformatory. The boys were permitted to attend acting classes in order to prepare for their roles. While Florin Şerban was making this feature film, director Ivana Mladenovic also shot a documentary film (working title “Life In Squares”) about the lives of young offenders in Romania. http://www.berlinale.de/en/programm/berlinale_programm/datenblatt.php?film_id=20103373

Portretul luptatorului la tinerete (Portrait of the Fighter as a Young Man) – Berlin International Film Festival When the Soviet Army marched into Romania in 1944, a part of the Romanian population went "into the mountains" – a diverse assortment of nationalists and fascists, liberals, apolitical farmers and members of the middle-class, who were affected by the Communists' expropriations. Over a thousand armed resistance groups took refuge in the inaccessible forests of the Carpathian Mountains where they waited in vain for the support of the Western Allies. Thirty of them held their ground well into the 1950s. One was led by Ion Gavrilă-Ogoranu, who managed to remain undetected until 1976 when he was arrested. Constantin Popescu's feature film depicts the daily existence of this group. With the strictness of protocol, it tells the story of a struggle that became an end in itself, as the enemy was constantly in pursuit and arrest meant torture and often liquidation. Hungry and emotionally withdrawn, the group of young men got entangled in a partisan war that could not be won, lost in the landscape of the South Carpathians, accompanied by a vigilant secret police, the Securitate. The everyday life of a hunt that was far from the heroism attributed to the glorified anti-communist resistance today. (http://www.berlinale.de/en/programm/berlinale_programm/datenblatt.php?film_id=20100471)