12:08 East Of Bucharest

Dry comedies from eastern Europe tend to cast a skeptical eye on anything and everything, which is certainly the case with Corneliu Porumboiu’s debut feature (2006), a Cannes prizewinner about memories of the 1989 Romanian revolution. In a nondescript village (Porumboiu’s real-life hometown), a TV talk show is organized so that a teacher and a pensioner can discuss what they were doing the day Ceausescu was deposed. Part of the minimalist humor growing out of this small-scale event is that they can barely remember anything, because the revolution scarcely made any difference. In Romanian with subtitles. 89 min. (JR)

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