Christmas is around the (nearest) corner and with it the days up to New Year’s, a daze of food (mainly the eponymous meat-filled cabbage rolls), family, friends, and (hopefully for as many as possible) no work. Also a time to catch up on movies. Here are a few to pass these weeks, some are for free, so make sure to scroll down, and for the others I include their respective streaming site/ TV channel.

Bogdan Mureșanu’s The New Year That Never Came/ Anul Nou care n-a fost (on Netflix and HBO) is the first and most recent title that sprang to my mind. The interconnecting stories leading up to the Revolution of 1989 are handsomely and assuredly done, culminating in a riotous ending. It includes the director’s previous short film, The Christmas Gift/ Cadoul de Crăciun in its entirety, more or less. And I prefer the short, it is much more focused, and also turns out to be the feature’s funniest bit: a potentially disastrously honest letter a child writes to Santa, unleashing familial drama and propelling the father (a fantastic Adrian Văncică) into pure frenzy. No wonder it snatched all possible audience and critics’ awards.  

The Father Who Moves Mountains/ Tata mută munții (on Netflix and HBO Max) delivers the snowy backdrop for the season. The holidays are marginal here while the vertigo-inducing mountain action takes the spotlight. When his young son gets lost in the mountains in winter, his father, a retired military alpha man (the ubiquitous Adrian Titieni, sporting hilariously fake-looking black lush hair and full overacting mode) moves said mountains to find him. The plot and dialogue could use some trimming and subtlety but delivers solid food for thought on how far one would go to save their child. What I do enjoy a lot is the films adrenaline-fueled drive and impressing views of the stunning peaks, the Bucegi mountains in Bușțeni. I have a weakness for thrillers set at high altitude so am more than ready for the genre to use the local landscape and go for it in full blockbuster style. Director Gabriel Sandu made a fantastic start.  

You'll have to forgive me for repeating myself with the next recommendation, but I can’t leave it out because to me it's the holy grail of Romanian Christmas movies: Corneliu Porumboiu's perfect 12:08 East of Bucharest/ A fost sau n-a fost (on Netflix and most likely on national TV). Its ‘heroes’ are three citizens from Vaslui who gather on the 22nd of December 1995 to debate live on the local TV channel whether their city took an active part in the Revolution, meaning if the town’s protesters rose against Ceauşescu first or merely reacted to the events in Bucharest in December 1989. The problem is that these gentlemen have a terrible memory, anger issues, suffer from depression and alcoholism. Not ideal for a serious debate. Add a decrepit studio, an incompetent cameraman, a hysterical host and you get comedy gold. The sharpy-written film is much more than its brilliant gags, it remains eternally relevant in its intelligent, compassionate comment on historiography, and an individual and collective sense of identity.

And finally, to mix it all up and make the list less predictably wintry, I give you a selection of works by Alina Manolache, a documentary filmmaker dear to my heart. I've just stumbled upon news that selected pics are free to watch and am happy to share. Her feature debut Lost Kids on the Beach/ Copii pierduți pe plajă is a delicate, moving documentary about the generation born in the 1990s, using as a starting point the “lost” metaphor, linked to a phenomenon of the 1980s and 1990s when kids got lost on the crowded beaches of the Black Sea and the local radio station aired the child’s description for a quick find. The other available titles are shorts: End of Summer and Disco Is Dead, both featuring young adults (the director meets their endearing awkwardness with great kindness and curiosity). The last title, and my most cherished, is her collaboration with Vladimir Potop for The Guardian-commissioned 2020: A Covid Space Odyssey (watch here) editing NASA footage from astronaut Jessica Meir’s mission on the International Space Station between autumn 2019 and April 2020. Meir and her colleague Christina Koch were also the first women to partner for a spacewalk. We all know when the pandemic broke out and Meir’s eloquent, poetic musings on experiencing this, and our planet, from afar are pure joy, as are the images from the ship and space, playful and awe-inducing. Fear not, this is not a sad film but an uplifting take on beauty and belonging. I did not expect to be so happy watching it, like a child opening a Christmas present.

Merry holidays, dear Insiders, and a similarly joyous New Year!

By Ioana Moldovan, film columnist: ioana.moldovan@romania-insider.com

Picture info & credit: still from 2020: A Covid Space Odyssey, credit of the director’s website