Cover Here are the movies you shouldn't miss at Broadway Cinematheque's 25th anniversary Radu Jude Retrospective (Photo: Broadway Cinematheque)

Clarence Tsui, director of Broadway Cinematheque recommends six movies to watch from their 25th anniversary programme, Radu Jude Retrospective

Since opening its doors in 1996, Broadway Cinematheque (BC) has established itself as an irreplaceable cinematic cultural landmark in Hong Kong. The Yau Ma Tei-based cinema has housed indie films, art-house cinemas, film festivals, retrospectives and film events. In celebration of its 25th anniversary, BC is hosting a series of activities under the theme of “Seize Your Moments in Our Space” from December 16, 2021 to January 14, 2022. Taking centre stage is their first Romanian programme dedicated to filmmaker, Radu Jude.

Speaking exclusively to Tatler, director of BC Clarence Tsui says, “We champion films which could at once be humorous and also hard-hitting in their observations about society; experimental in seeking new forms of expression and empathetic towards time-honoured values such as liberty, equality and fraternity for all.”

The reason to highlight Radu Jude for their 25th anniversary is that “[He] ticks all [of the above] boxes, and more. In his two-decade career, Radu has transcended barriers and confronted taboos with incredible ease, as he reveals the social malaise in his country, Romania, through social realist comedies, a black-and-white Western, beautifully mounted period drama and documentaries using archive footage, photographs and even plastic toys.”

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Tsui adds that Jude’s films “are also universal and speak to us” because of his “critique about state-sponsored patriotism, and all the terrible things people have been led to think and do in its name, is equally applicable to societies around the world as those in power seek to distract people from their mistakes and misdemeanours. Funny and fearless in equal measures, he’s the 21st century equivalent of the boy who sees through the emperor’s new clothes and dares to say something about that.”

Getting the chance to see Romanian films in Hong Kong is rare and many Hongkongers might not be so familiar with them. To help with that, Tsui is personally recommending six movies from Jude’s retrospective and why you should watch them.

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1. The Happiest Girl in the World (2009)

The Happiest Girl in the World follows Delia who goes to Bucharest with her parents to collect a car, a prize that she won in a competition organised by a soft drinks company. In order to collect her prize, she needs to appear in a commercial. Everything went according to plan so far, until Delia discovers that she and her parents have different for the new car and all the sponsor needs is to capture the prize winner with her best smile possible.

Clarence Tsui: “The film’s based on a very simple premise unfolding mostly around one street corner in Bucharest. But Radu defied such a modest setting by offering such a sweeping statement about the status quo in 21st century Romania. Nicolae Ceausescu’s dictatorship might have long since passed, and the society is seemingly awash with choices. But do people really have the freedom to choose what they want with the dignity they deserve?”

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2. Aferim! (2015)

Set in the early 19th century in Wallachia, Aferim! centres around a local policeman who’s hired by a boyar to find a Roma slave called Carfin. The boy had run away from the boyar’s estate after having an affair with his wife.

Clarence Tsui: “Veering away from the modern settings of his first two features, Radu managed to keep his mettle and his maverick attitude by presenting a strikingly beautiful film about the ugly underbelly of human nature. Beyond the pristine and mesmerising black-and-white cinematography, Radu reveals the horrifying crude and casual racism in 18th century Romania—sentiments which remain worryingly alive around the world today.”

3. The Exit of the Trains (2020)

This powerful movie consists of archive photographs and documents that show the massacre of the Jews in Iasi, in Romania which took place on June 29, 1941.

Clarence Tsui: “There’s been a long-running debate about how the Holocaust could and should be represented on screen, and Radu’s response is a three-hour litany of the photographs of those who perished and voiceovers of how they were murdered—by their own fellow Romanians—during a bloody massacre in the Romanian city of Iasi in 1941. At once a moving memorial to the victims and an unflinching j’accuse against those who elected to forget these crimes, The Exit of the Trains is one of the most powerful testimonies about the Holocaust committed to film.”

4. Uppercase Print (2020)

Uppercase Print tells the story of Mugur Calinescu, a Romanian teenager who’s against the regime of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. To protest, he wrote graffiti messages but was subsequently appended, interrogated and met his demise at the hands of the secret police.

Clarence Tsui: “Radu champions the use of montage in his films—that is, the juxtaposition of two elements to produce an additional layer of meaning. Here, it’s used to devastating effect, when the main narrative of the official persecution of a schoolboy who daubed graffiti on walls in 1981—with dialogue drawn straight from the records of the secret police—is punctuated by archive TV footage of communist propaganda about the happy lives led by ordinary Romanians. This is a modern-day 1984.”

5. Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn (2021)

This 2020 film revolves around Emi, a high school teacher whose career hangs in the balance after her personal sex tape is leaked online. Emi faces pressure from her students’ parents to resign and demand her dismissal but the teacher refuses to surrender.

Clarence Tsui: “Hell is other people: that’s what Radu’s trying to say with his latest film—and many people seem to agree, as it received ecstatic reviews on the way to winning the top prize at the prestigious Berlin International Film Festival in March.

If you’re shocked by its first few minutes—taken up by images from a ‘sex tape’ made by the film’s schoolteacher protagonist—get ready to be gobsmacked by the way she’s put through the wringer in a kangaroo trial by racist, sexist hypocrites. In between, Radu offers a middle-section of short vignettes which take aim at the social mores of past and present. We can nearly call it a comedy—if only the spectres it raised aren’t so real.”

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6. The Cruise (1980)

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Above Photo: Broadway Cinematheque

While not directed by Radu Jude, The Cruise has been personally selected by Jude to showcase films that inspired his work. This 1980 ensemble drama follows a group of young men and women who go on a free cruise as a reward for being ‘model workers’ in their respective fields. But being young and carefree, they are also wild, filled with oozing discontent and youthful desire which quickly turns off the adults on board.

Clarence Tsui: “For this retrospective, we invited Radu to curate a carte blanche of films which inspired his work. Among his favourite directors—and a kindred spirit of his—is Mircea Daneliuc, whose irreverence towards the authorities has once led him to quit the Romanian Communist Party and even filmmaking because the authorities threatened to censor and ban his films.

Of all Daneliuc’s films, Radu selected The Cruise, a satire in which a bunch of young, hot-blooded “model workers” are gifted with a boat trip along the Danube—only for them to soon revolt against the strict regime imposed on them by the apparatchiks presiding over the journey. Bubbling with youthful, subversive energy, the film turns a cruise into a microcosm of the discontent among a new generation towards authoritarian rule. It’s the seed that spawns the Romanian New Wave which is to follow.”


Radu Jude Retrospective: Romanian Revelations! runs from December 16, 2021 to January 14, 2022 only in Broadway Cinematheque. For more information on ticketing, please visit cinema.com.hk

 

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