Alazia 2018
As a last resort, a girl diagnosed with cancer goes to an unconventional shaman.
As a last resort, a girl diagnosed with cancer goes to an unconventional shaman.
A love story between a young communist in illegality and a girl who presents herself as Magellan.
In the remote Romanian village of Catane, a community of villagers, long surviving on disability benefits obtained through ambiguous means, faces exposure when a local inquiry descends. What unfolds is not a story of deception, but of unexpected ingenuity as the villagers craft a disarmingly poetic and humorous response to the absurdities of a broken system. In reinventing their way of life, they reveal not only a means of survival—but a radical model of communal resilience in a fractured world.
Directed by four different filmmakers and produced by different production companies, these four short films share a common theme - life and death - and a common origin - all four are independent productions made with a little help from all our friends.
An ordinary day in Romania. Under a highway exit close to Bucharest, Lidia and Denisa are changing their clothes; warm pullovers and sneakers are exchanged for tight tops and heels. The two are then waiting for clients, an icy wind gusting around their ears.
Communist activists have to let out steam due to increased pressure in their professional life.
In the fifties, the leaders of the Greek-Catholic church are arrested and sent to the Sighet prison.The soviet regime has banned any church except the orthodox. Tortured and dehumanized, the only choices are conversion or death. The bishop Iuliu Hossu stands up in front of the torturers and through courage and stature becomes an inspiration for the other priests.
A subway train is blocked between stations on the morning after the fire in the Colectiv Club in Romania.
Several residents discover an unconscious woman lying in front of the block. Even though she lives on the third floor, nobody knows her name. While waiting for rescue, the neighbours reflect on her life and their own.
Tacke, an old graveyard digger, finds out he has only two months left to live. This is the moment he discovers he does want something out of life: a glamorous funeral service in the cemetery's « downtown » area, where he had spotted for a long time an splendidly situated burial site. Everything goes smoothly, especially that the town's luxury funeral home has just acquired Lady Di's hearth. Tacke has some money for the funeral ceremony, he also has some friends who would mourn for him, but he is out of luck: the funeral site he was hoping to acquire was just given to somebody else.
Near by Christmas, in an old and charming town in Transylvania, Sebastian and Aprilia start a beautiful love story. However, nothing is as simple as it would seem. Being influenced by three men with strong personalities, Aprilia needs to find the balance between adulthood and the choices of a young girl's heart. It's Christmas time and life holds for this talented beautiful girl only the presents that she is strong enough to grab.
The story of three friends who, through a less happy situation, end up in prison. There they plan their escape and with the help of a local mobster they manage to escape only to prepare for the next robbery. Too a strange potion with really strange consequences will fall into their hands.
A gang falsifies college degrees and sells them. They also help their careers, so that later they can blackmail them to obtain industrial espionage.
The father, in the USA, films his life on tapes for his family in Romania to watch. The mother and the child, in Romania, watch the tapes and film themselves for the father.
Alexandru Popovici is a man obsessed with women, whom he films relentlessly. This montage of family and anonymous archives questions the male gaze in the era of Romanian totalitarianism.
After the mysterious disappearance of the island of Ada-Kaleh, the site of an incendiary love affair, Ismail flees to Istanbul, leaving behind a great love and a child named Gicu. As the years go by, Gicu grows up and experiences a forbidden passion with Lucica, a beautiful and seductive woman full of unfulfilled desires. Everything changes one day, when Gicu sees his father on a television program. This is when fate brings them together, but in unexpected and dangerous ways.
On a garbage dump, people try to make a living in the poorest of conditions.
Velicanu considers himself a fulfilled person. He's got money, a new villa, married a younger woman and has a son from a previous marriage. Before the holidays he has to leave everything in order, but things start to get complicated. The crisis at the end of the day make him wonder whatever he is indeed a happy, fulfilled person...
In the aftermath of a tragic fire in a Romanian club, burn victims begin dying in hospitals from wounds that were not life threatening. A team of investigative journalists move into action uncovering the mass corruption of the health system and of the state institutions. Collective follows journalists, whistle blowers, and authorities alike. An immersive and uncompromising look into a dysfunctional system, exposing corruption, propaganda, and manipulation that nowadays affect not only Romania, but societies around the world.
An old geriatrics professor accidentally discovers after a high-school reunion a potion that can rejuvenate anybody and uses it on him and his friends. They all go their new youthful ways but, for most of them, things don't go according to plan.