12:08 East of Bucharest

Name: 12:08 East of Bucharest
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Released: 2006
Duration: 89 min
Cast: Mircea Andreescu, Teodor Corban, Ion Sapdaru, Mirela Cioaba, Luminita Gheorghiu

Corneliu Porumboiu20061h 29mComedy, Drama

Why we chose it

Corneliu Porumboiu, a director of the Romanian New Wave, won the Caméra d’Or at Cannes with his debut. Ceaușescu fled Bucharest on 22 December 1989, and sixteen years later a provincial TV station asks, live on air, whether their town had a revolution too.

Synopsis

On 22 December, sixteen years after Ceaușescu’s fall, a provincial TV station puts out a live anniversary programme, but the host has only managed to get two guests into the studio: a history teacher with a drinking problem and a pensioner who used to play Santa Claus under the regime. The question is whether anyone in town took to the square before 12:08, when the dictator’s helicopter took off.