“Aliyah Dada is one of the most pleasant and refreshing surprises of the contemporary Romanian cinema. Oana Giurgiu’s documentary is a personal, very well documented and intelligently presented investigation about the history of Jewish presence in Romania.” (Film Magazine, Romania)

Renowned Romanian producer Oana Giurgiu’s (Child’s Pose) directorial debut is a witty and frank exploration of Jewish Romanians’ emigration to the Holy Land over the last 130 years. Surprisingly eloquent and intimate, it’s made in a Dadaesque style as a tribute to the pioneers of the radical art movement, Tristan Tzara—who was born in the same town from which the first Romanian Jews emigrated to Palestine in 1882—and Marcel Janco. Reveling in the absurdities and contradictions embedded in the story, Aliyah Dada also reveals the hidden horrors of World War II in Romania, the Communists’ secret deals for trading Jews to Israel, and the influence of 400,000 Romanians (now the fourth largest group of immigrants in the population) on Israeli culture.