Documentary movies

A documentary which follows the most important events of Constantin Brâncuși, a Romanian artist.

In an attempt to verify the hypothesis that her Aromanian grandfathers were photographed by the famous brothers Milton and Ianaki Manakia, the director embarks on a Balkans journey through Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia and Greece.

The mountain running documentary 10.000 Meters Up (La Cota 10.000) brings together two of the most beautiful things that we know: Romania and the mountains. Even though in real life the 10.000 meters mountain altitude mark is a utopia, the documentary follows an expedition among the Carpathians, running through Retezat, Fagaras, Bucegi, Ciucas and Ceahlau mountains, summing up 10.000 altitude gain in less than one week. This adventure became a story of trail running and carries the audience in fairy tales landscapes, revealing how high can we reach if we dare to dream.

Constructed almost entirely from still photos masterfully synchronized with audio commentaries, this challenging doc tells the story of an adventurous one-man motorcycle expedition that spans over 21, 000 kilometers and 14 countries.

Filmmaker Alina Manolache was born 1990, the year after the fall and execution of Romanian dictator Ceausescu. It marked the beginning of a new, post-communist era. At the start of the film, she calls out to people who had ever been lost on the beach in the nineties to get in touch with her. This seemingly random appeal leads to her traveling around the country and having conversations with a large number of peers about their memories of the experience, and about their life now.

Film is an exploration of a special universe: the annual vacation of a bunch of 70-year-old ladies. Far from men and the madness of daily life, Cica, Nana and their friends isolate themselves voluntarily in a villa in the countryside. Together they blend joie de vivre and memories, melancholia and joyfulness, gossip and jokes. All that to keep up the illusion that time has not passed, that they are still the same beautiful and attractive girls they were 50 years ago.

In the spring of 1944, the fate of many Allied pilots who fell in Eastern Europe was unknown. The MI9 office in Cairo decides to recruit agents from among the Zionists who had emigrated from these countries to Palestine before the war. Their mission? Find the prisoners and organize a potential escape. The occasional spies will soon find themselves caught among war, politics and personal life.

The director captures the final year in the life of the woman who helped raise him, as age slowly gets the best of her. The simple filming style, in which neither the camera nor the protagonist ever leaves her flat, results in an unusually intense and extremely personal record of time passing and the relationship with a loved one. It's a raw yet formal testament that sensitively manages to avoid any trace of sentimental kitsch, leading the viewer on an emotional journey of the everyday reality of Bunina's days and her mercilessly worsening physical and psychological condition.

30-year old man is looking for a mysterious snake.

After the end of the Ceausescu regime, Romania is a country in search of a democratic government that the people can trust, but now it's hard to find someone that is not tainted by the past.

The film tells the story of one of the oldest circus families in Romania, descendants of the Globus Circus founder, Toma Zdebschi. Mina and Carol have been married for 55 years. They were both circus artists. Mina is 75 and Carol is 84.

An old aviator fights to stay in the air. Whether he wins or not, his participation will mark a new record for aviation and will allow one more armistice in his battle with time.

Kalo, a 24-year-old man roams Italy selling fake iPhones and Samsung phones on street corners to other neighborhood boys, generally immigrants. Amalia, a young mother fights for the life of her newborn daughter Riana, in a hospital in Bucharest. She hopes that her daughter will be sent as soon as possible to Milan, where Riana can have heart surgery to survive. In Everything for Riana we find out how everything will end for the young family.

An experiment with a device that tries to reconstruct memory fragments. Three characters who try to find a way so important memories won't disappear. A childhood memory, in which there was a storm outside and some stories were recorded on a phone.

The decision to change his name to a typical Romanian one, was extremely difficult and painful for Mohamed. Will Mohamed do what he so badly strives for and at the same time is afraid of? Will his father perceive this decision seriously?

Bucharest, October 1989: a secondary school student disappears without a trace. Weeks later, he resurfaces at a meeting of the Communist Youth where he is denounced for certain "reprehensible actions" and excluded from the organization. As a result of the same "reprehensible" deeds he is expelled from the school. His schoolmates are never told what his actions actually were. "Notorious deeds, unworthy of being mentioned," is the only comment provided by a high-level communist party representative. Now, 25 years later, those involved are keen to tell their side of the story.

Documentary on the Romanian rock band Phoenix.

At the intersection of a provincial track and an international road a Gypsy community of a small Romanian town begin and end their day. It is the point of the geographical crossing that divides them from the rest of the world and keeps them within the traditional lifestyle, where in generations survive families, elderly, men and women, children and teenagers.

Traditional Roma-communities of Romania are culturally rich communities, ruled with complicated rituals and customs. Marriage is maybe the most set in stone such custom, with everything about it being under very strict community control. What keeps everyone alert is Roma marriage’s highest stake: fertility and conceiving boys.

A city-vérité conceptual movie shot in Bucharest, the capital of Romania. With an outside-the-box cinematic perspective, a full-encompassing soundtrack, a sequential narrative approach and no dialogues, the film slices through the urban soul and the contemporary spirit of a city formerly known as "Little Paris".

Procreation is the social duty of all fertile women, was the political thinking during the 1960s and 1970s in Romania. In 1966, Ceaucescu issued Decree 770, in which he forbade abortion for all women unless they were over forty or were already taking care of four children. All forms of contraception were totally banned. The New Romanian Man was born. By 1969, the country had a million babies more than the previous average. Romanian society was rapidly changing. By using very interesting archival footage and excerpts from old fiction films and by interviewing famous personalities from that time – gynecologists or mothers who were part of the new society - the director revives this period of tremendous oppression of personal freedom. Many deaths were caused by the mere fact that women, including wives of secret Romanian agents, famous TV presenters, and actresses, had to undergo illegal abortions. Many women were jailed for having them.

A 92-year-old man, having outlived major historical events such as war, peace, communism, the revolution and post-revolution, opens up about his life and old age.

A documentary about love, dance and music, freedom and prison.

At the end of a long-term relationship, a half-blind director, born in 1986, whose mother blames his illness on the Chernobyl nuclear accident, leaves his life in Romania behind and embarks on a journey out of the desire to find and other people affected by the same disaster. He falls in love with a young woman from Ukraine and his life changes completely.