12:08 East of Bucharest

(A fost sau n-a fost?)

featuring

Mircea Andreescu, Teodor Corban, Ion Sapdaru,

“What’s all the fuss about the revolution? No one cares anymore,” says a young trophy mistress during the sixteenth anniversary of the Romanian revolution. Preparing for another year of getting older, drunker, and lonelier, the bickering threesome of a retiree, a teacher, and a television host pose a related question on the host’s show: did a true revolution take place in their town, or did everyone conveniently rebel after the regime collapsed? Several argumentative call-ins, insults, drinks, technical breakdowns, Romany musical interludes, and lies later, they may have an answer, or a new question: “What difference did it make?” Dynamic, sharp-witted, and cut with narrative precision, the Cannes Caméra d’Or–winning 12:08 East of Bucharest is a classic Eastern European allegory of how nations remember (and rewrite) their darkest moments, and how (and why) people need their own stories.

Jason Sanders
FILM DETAILS 
Screenwriter
  • Corneliu Porumboiu
Cinematographer
  • George Dascalescu
  • Marius Panduru
Language
  • Romanian
  • with English subtitles
Print Info
  • Color
  • 35mm
  • 89 mins
Source
  • Kino Lorber