Directed by Cristi Puiu • 2005 • Romania
Starring Ion Fiscuteanu, Luminița Gheorghiu, Doru Ana
Hailed as one of the defining works of twenty-first-century cinema thus far, Cristi Puiu’s unflinching, darkly comic bureaucratic nightmare heralded the arrival of the Romanian New Wave as a major cinematic force. Suffering from severe headaches, cantankerous alcoholic Mr. Lazarescu (Ion Fiscuteanu) finds himself shuttled from hospital to hospital, as each doctor he sees refuses to treat him and no one can agree on a diagnosis. As the indignities and everyday absurdities pile up, Puiu transforms a seemingly modest human drama into a devastating indictment of institutional indifference.
Up Next in Romanian New Wave
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Sieranevada
Directed by Cristi Puiu • 2016 • Romania
Starring Mimi Brǎnescu, Judith State, Bogdan DumitracheRomanian New Wave leader Cristi Puiu continues to blend the personal and the political to arresting effect in this sprawling, drolly comic family portrait that doubles as an existential X-ray of cont...
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4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
Directed by Cristian Mungiu • 2007 • Romania
Starring Anamaria Marinca, Laura Vasiliu, Vlad IvanovRomanian filmmaker Cristian Mungiu shot to international prominence with this rigorously realistic Palme d’Or–winning second feature. In 1987, during the dictatorship of Nicolae Ceaușescu, colle...
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Police, Adjective
Directed by Corneliu Porumboiu • 2009 • Romania
Starring Dragoş Bucur, Vlad Ivanov, Irina SǎulescuDirector Corneliu Porumboiu (12:08 EAST OF BUCHAREST) interrogates the ways in which draconian authority, bureaucracy, and even language continue to shape life in post-Communist Romania in this mor...
