Romanian Student Association at MIT (RSA) invites you to

 An Evening of Romanian Cinema:
Film Screening of "Occident" and
Meeting with Filmmaker Cristian Mungiu

Poster Occident ENGLISH SUBTITLES!

Saturday, September 18, 2004 @ 7pm
Room 10-250, MIT Campus (directions)

Entrance Fee:
$3 students, $5 others; tickets sold at the door

Trailers:
Romanian - DivX, Win MediaPlayer
English - DivX, Win MediaPlayer
technical problems?

Event organized with the generous support of
MIT Council for the Arts
MIT Center for Bilingual/Bicultural Studies (CBBS)
Romanian National Center of Cinematography

Occident (Romania, 2002)
110 minutes
Romanian WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES

Screenwriter and Director:
Cristian Mungiu
Director of Photography:
Vivi Dragan Vasile
Camera:
Oleg Mutu
Music:
Petru Margineanu, Ioan Gyuri Pascu
Cast:
Alexandru Papadopol, Dorel Visan,
Tania Popa, Coca Bloos,
Ioan Gyuri Pascu, Tora Vasilescu,
Anca Androne

Production:
Temple Films, Dan Badea

 Description:
"Occident" is a bitter comedy about the people who want to emigrate from Romania, and about those who stay behind. The movie has a rich, interesting structure: there are three different stories - a weeklong in the film - that cross, interconnect and happen in the same period. The characters influence each others lives, sometimes even without knowing. Main characters from one story become secondary characters in another story. At the same time, scenes from the first part of the movie bring unexpected facts when seen the second or the third time. The stories do not have just one ending: the first story ends in each of the third parts in a different point, suggesting radically different solutions for the characters. The way in which the director fits time and links events together often produces thematically unexpected results.

Awards:
Best New Director Award - Leeds;
Best Picture - Cluj TIFF;
Great Prize for Best Picture - Annonay 2003;
"Quinzaine des Realisateurs" - Cannes 2002

About the Director Cristian Mungiu
Born in Iasi, Romania, in 1968, Cristian Mungiu graduated from the University of Iasi with a degree in English and American Literature. For a period, he worked as an English language teacher, newspaper journalist, and radio/TV journalist and entertainer. In 1998, Cristian Mungiu graduated from the Academy for Theatre and Film in Bucharest. His graduation film, "The Hand of Paulista", represented Romania at the student Oscar awards in 1999. Cristian Mungiu made three other shorts: "Nothing by Chance", "The Firemen's Choir" and "Zapping", all of them well-received at international festivals; "Zapping" was also screened in 2003 by Canal+. His first feature, "Occident", had its international premiere at Quainzaine des Realisateurs in Cannes, 2002. The film was a big hit in Romania; it also won 10 international awards, including The Audience Award in Tessalonik, The Fipresci Critics Award in Sofia and awards for best film in Leeds, Mons, Annonay and Cluj. Cristian Mungiu also worked as assistant director for several foreign films shot in Romania: "Capitaine Conan" (by Bertrand Tavernier), "Train de Vie" (by Radu Mihaileanu), and "Beowulf" (by Graham Baker). Besides filmmaking, Cristian Mungiu is also very active in literary circles: his first book, "Cristian Mungiu: 7 screenplays" was published at Liternet Publishing House in 2002. For more information, click here for an interview with Cristian Mungiu (unfortunately, the interview is only in Romanian).

For more information, please write an email to the RSA Officers.