Harun Farocki and Andrei Ujica’s hard-hitting documentary Videograms of a Revolution (1992, 106 minutes) subversively records Romania’s 1989 revolution. The film documents the historic first-ever revolution in which television played a major role, stitching together official Romanian state television broadcasts with amateur archival footage. For this remarkable film, the directors collected over 125 hours of never before seen amateur and professional video footage, including the fall, attempted flight, and Christmas-day execution of communist President Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife Elena. The film’s protagonist is contemporary history itself.

Videograms of a Revolution – An evening in Romanian Cinema, will take place on Wednesday, May 19th, 2010 at 7 pm.  The screening will be held in the Signy and Cléophée Eaton Theatre, ROM Level 1B – please enter through the President’s Choice School Entrance at the south end of the Museum at 100 Queen’s Park, Toronto.

The film will be preceded by award-winning short film Traffic (2004, 15 minutes) directed by Romanian filmmaker Catalin Mitulescu. Winner of the Cannes’ Palme d’Or for Best Short Film, Traffic follows businessman Tudor during his 20 minute break in twenty-first-century Bucharest.

The films are presented by the ROM’s Institute for Contemporary Culture (ICC), as part of the exhibition programming for Dan Perjovschi: Late News, open until August 15, 2010.

General Admission: $10 / ROM Members & Students $8 / Friends of ICC: $6

Tickets available at the door.

EXHIBITION: DAN PERJOVSCHI: LATE NEWS

During his ten days in residence at the ROM in February 2010, internationally renowned artist Dan Perjovschi transformed the dramatic soaring walls of the ICC’s Roloff Beny Gallery with his brilliant and irreverent cartoons. Commenting on everything from the Olympics to Avatar and the ROM’s Michael Lee-Chin Chrystal, Romanian-born Perjovschi’s acclaimed exhibitions are always a personal response to the social and political atmosphere, and the geographic location, in which they are created.

One of Eastern Europe’s most sought-after contemporary artists, Perjovschi has developed a unique artistic practice that merges the political cartoon with the site-specific art installation. Traveling to museums and galleries around the world, Perjovschi immerses himself in the local media – newspapers, magazines, television, and the internet – and creates wall drawings in response to local and international events. Recognized for his unique style, his drawings are noted for their biting humour and honest insights into our collective conscience.

The Institute for Contemporary Culture is proud to present Dan Perjovschi’s first solo exhibition in Canada. It will remain on view until August 15, 2010, when his ephemeral drawings in permanent marker are erased and painted over again.

Generously supported by Dekla.

FREE with ROM admission during regular Museum hours.

For more information on ICC events, please visit www.rom.on.ca/icc/

For the full Press Release please click: http://rom.on.ca/news/releases/public.php?mediakey=gdf0s0ha5r

the Institute for Contemporary Culture (ICC) is the Royal Ontario Museum’s (ROM) window on contemporary societies around the globe. playing a vital role within the historical museum, the ICC examines current cultural, social and political issues throughout the modern world in thought-provoking exhibitions of contemporary art, architecture and design. for more information visit www.rom.on.ca/icc or on facebook at @IccAtRom

The Paper Will Be Blue / Hartia va fi albastra (2006)
Director: Radu Muntean
Cast: Dragos Bucur, Paul Ipate, Adi Carauleanu
Running time: 95 min.

On a December morning in 1989, a roadblock unit pulls over an AFV in front of a military unit on the outskirts of the town. Two soldiers in blue uniforms get out of the vehicle for a smoke. All the passengers of the AFV, including the two who were out smoking quietly, are killed… The revolution finds Costi Andronescu three months away from his release from the army. He believes that the mission of any Romanian, after so many years of dictatorship, is to fight the terrorists with all their might, no matter what the higher officers say. He runs away to fight at the national TV headquarters, and an officer decides to try his luck and search for Costi over there…

Official Selection of the Directors Fortnight, Cannes 2008;
Award For Best Screenwriter at the Hamptons IFF;
Special Jury Award, Palic IFF;
2008 – Best Director, Anonimul Film Festival 2008, Romania
2006 – Jury Prize at Marrakech Film Festival

Videograms of a Revolution / Videogramele unei revolutii (1992)
Director: Harun Farocki and Andrei Ujică
Running time: 106 min.

A film on the relationship between political power and the media in Europe in the End of Cold War Europe. Videograms of a Revolution chronicles the Romanian revolution of 1989 – including the fall, attempted flight and Christmas-day execution of President Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife Elena. The documentary consists of found-footage, assembled and intercut to gradually reveal the course of history over the ten days of populist revolt. The film’s protagonist is contemporary history itself.

2004 – Austrian Film Archive: “Die Utopie Film” program – selection in “The Best 100 in Film History”

Tales from the Golden Age

Tales From The Golden Age / Amintiri din epoca de aur (2009)
Director: Constantin Popescu Jr, Razvan Marculescu, Ioana Uricaru, Hanno Hofer, Cristian Mungiu
Screenwriter: Cristian Mungiu
Cast: Ion Sapdaru, Teodor Corban, Calin Chirila, Radu Iacoban, Diana Cavallioti
Running time: 138 min.

Five short stories dealing with an unconventional personal history of the late Communist period in Romania.

The Legend of the Official Visit
On the occasion of Ceausescu’s working visits, countryside mayors ended up hanging fruit in trees to make sure their villages would be noticed, obeying even the strangest orders from the ferocious Party activists.

The Legend of the Party Photographer
Communist Party secret regulations stated that in official pictures President Ceausescu couldn’t take his hat off in front of the representatives of the rotten capitalistic world, President d’Estaing included.

The Legend of the Chicken Driver
A professional driver decides to open his sealed truck for the first time in his career and discovers the connection between eggs, Easter and marital love.

The Legend of the Greedy Policeman
A policeman gets a live pig as gift before Christmas and decides that gas poisoning would be the best way to kill the animal silently amongst his hungry neighbors.

The Legend of the Air Sellers
In the 80s Romania, Bughi and Crina play Bonnie and Clyde, robbing people of bottled air.

2009 – Official Selection, Un Certain Regard, Cannes Film Festival

Q&A session with director Hanno Hoffer to follow screening

1. The New Wave of the Romanian Cinema / La Nouvelle Vague roumain (2008)
Director: Marius Doicov & Vincent Guyottot
Running time: 60 min.

Following director Radu Mihaileanu during preparations for his new movie, shot in Bucharest, the French documentary team investigates the incumbent and imperative forces that stimulated, generated and accelerated the most effervescent film movement in recent years: the new wave of Romanian filmmakers.
2. Panel Discussion, ‘Adapt-a-Script:’
Moderator: Calin-Andrei Mihailescu
Panel: Tudor Giurgiu, Jennie Punter, Adam Nayman
Ceausescu, the Communist dictator of Romania, used to say that “life incessantly demonstrated the justness of the one Party’s plans.” Somehow, the revolution that toppled him in December, 1989, proved him dead wrong.

The Romanian filmmakers who emerged in the past decade responded to these dark times through powerful script to both make sense of and dark fun of it. Caranfil, Mungiu, Muntean, Porumboiu, Nemescu, Solomon, and Giurgiu, to name a few, have found new aesthetic ways of addressing the messiness of Romanian life, its cruelty, bare-bones richness and overwhelming humour. The participants at this round table will discuss generic questions of adaptation:

a. scripted life in the crossfire of simulacra
b. adapting film to various audiences to make them adept to this kind of cinema
c. avoiding the circularity of mass culture in these mutual adaptations
d. the Darwinian adaptation of the Romanian New Wave to the busy marketplace of world cinema