Romanian film - The eternal searchers: An interview with filmmaker Andrei Gruzsniczki

Andrei Grusznicki's films are, without exception, among the most interesting Romanian films of the past years. His 2009 long-feature debut, CealaltăIrina/The Other Irene, is a gripping story of a couple's disintegration after the wife leaves to work in Egypt for a few months. Set in the mad 1990s with their wild mixture of communism and chaotic capitalism, driving people to work outside the country for some extra money, the film is also a laconic meditation on identity, loneliness, the truth and its illusory nature, and the individual quest for answers.

His second long-feature is similar in tone and theme but more striking in its style and scope. Quod Erat Demonstrandum is a drama/thriller set in the 1980s and centred on the friendship between Elena and Sorin, a mathematician and a computer scientist. While the latter has just published an article in an American scientific journal without the state's permission, Elena is waiting to be allowed to join her husband in France after he had left the country. In the meantime, Sorin asks Elena to carry a mysterious suitcase into France and they are both approached by a driven Securitate agent, testing not only their mutual loyalty but also their principles.