Lucian Pintilie

Ciulei’s second feature recalls the best of Fritz Lang and Michael Curtiz in its WWII-era espionage tale, set on a barge transporting Nazi munitions up the Danube. Ciulei himself givers a superb performance as Mihai, the barge captain forced to navigate the heavily mined waters along with his new bride, Ana (Irina Petrescu). As the journey wears on, Mihai becomes increasingly suspicious of one of his crew, ex-convict Toma (Lazar Vrabie), and his intentions towards Ana. But Toma has a far graver—and potentially deadly—secret to conceal.

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Oxygen is a free re-enactment of a real case: a man who tried to cross the Danube illegally using an oxygen cylinder, to escape the communist Romania.

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In the Ukrainian steppe, toward the end of World War II, the German and Romanian troops are retreating in the face of the unstoppable Red Army. A Romanian military unit has set up its headquarters in a deserted school. A visit of high-ranking Wehrmacht officers is suddenly announced. Hope is awakened: will they receive new orders? But disappointment comes quickly.

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A young journalist interviews a man who was a torturer during the early days of the communist regime in Romania.

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Mitu and Elena get to know each other in the course of a vodka drinking contest and discover that they are both dissatisfied with the status quo. Mitu is about to begin military service and Elena is to be married to a man she does not love. They decide they are meant for each other and plan on a different future, one that is on a collision course with the authorities, and start a mad affair.

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In post-communist Romania, young prosecutor Dumitru Costa is sent to investigate a miner's suspicious death in the Jiu Valley. As he delves deeper, he uncovers a network of corruption and negligence within the local mining community. Costa's pursuit of justice pits him against powerful interests, testing his resolve in a society struggling with the aftermath of transition.

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In 1925 Romania, young Marie-Therese Von Debretsy refuses the flirtatious advances of her husband's commanding officer. As a result, the cosmopolitan family is reassigned to a brutally bleak and dangerous outpost on the Bulgarian/Romanian frontier where both their relationship and humanity are severely tested.

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A description of Romania before Ceausescu's downfall, through the story of Nela. Daughter of a former colonel of the Securitate, the romanian political police. She refused to become like her sister, an agent of this Securitate, and lives with her father. After he died, she leaves Bucharest, and ends up in a little town, where she meets Mitica, a surgeon, another herself, laughing at everything.

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Presentation of the one-month long rally in the University Place of Bucharest, Romania, where students and others demonstrated against the neo-communist government who had taken power after the toppling of communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.

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Based on a theatrical text by Romanian writer Ion Luca Caragiale (1852-1912), who was a bitter and funny witness of the turn-of-the-20th-century Romanian bourgeois mores, Carnival Scenes manages to preserve and further enhance the slightly hysteric atmosphere of his plays. Pintilie creates a strange combination of carnival scenes which is brought to the screen as a burlesque, fast-paced, screwball comedy with a meditative undertone. This film was banned in Romania for a decade until the death of Ceausescu in 1989 and was only released after the 1989 revolution.

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A study of the mental breakdown of a doctor in a remote rural village. He believes himself intellectually superior to everyone except for a political prisoner in a mental ward. This is a metaphor on life under repressive governments, conformity versus individual expression.

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A prosecutor, policemen and teacher take the students Vuica and Nicu to a restaurant to re-enact their drunken brawl there, and have it filmed to show the effects of alcoholism.

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Romania, 1940. A boy meets a girl. They fall in love without suspecting anything about their real identities. They chose an eventful, tense and dangerous life as underground anti-fascists fighters. The significance of their activity is manifest in the consequences it has on the tormented progress of their love. Reality is against it. Two parallel lines which meet for a second, only to drift apart for ever.

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