NEW YORK PREMIERE

Stere Gulea follows up his 1987 The Moromete Family—about a peasant family whose highest value was to own land and work it—with this unexpected sensation. Gorgeously shot in evocative black and white, the film focuses on aspiring writer Niculae, the youngest son of the patriarch and the only member of the family to have gone to school. The film relates the family’s next chapter, with a particular emphasis on the way the village’s world order changed with the arrival of communism after World War II. Packed with top Romanian actors, this is a history lesson at its most entertaining and illuminating.