A spacious apartment in the centre of Bucharest and a large family gathered together to celebrate the birthday of its frail, 94-year-old patriarch: anything could happen in Dan Chişu’s overcomplicated family drama The Anniversary [+], which is competing in the International Competition of the Warsaw International Film Festival (13-22 October). What emerges from so many bubbly relationships and effervescent reactions is the fact that Romania’s society is still struggling (and is still far from succeeding) to redeem, fight or at least forget its communist past, with death and old age being powerful allies in this endeavour.

Chişu’s screenplay immediately sets the tone of this apartment drama: several people fret as they clean and decorate a big, somewhat antiquated apartment. A sizeable table is prepared for a family celebration, and we soon find out that patriarch Radu Maligan (the late Mircea Albulescu) is turning 94, with several generations of his sprawling family gathering for a special lunch. The Maligans are not a happy family: quarrels and thorny remarks hang heavy in the atmosphere. And things will not get any better when the guests, former work colleagues of the patriarch’s, start to arrive at the birthday party, like a menagerie of beasts bearing their claws and fangs.

It is impossible to write a review for The Anniversary without addressing the elephant in the room: the film feels like a less ambitious, clumsier version of Cristi Puiu’s superb Sieranevada [+]. But if Puiu excellently explores the complexities of family relationships, Chişu seems more interested in cobbling together a typology that comments on a generous palette of present issues in modern-day Romanian society and its relationship with a lingering, rather bitter past. The characters seem handpicked in order to cover as much social terrain as possible, from the corrupt, abusive politician and the former Securitate agent to the hardworking, frustrated housewife and the beautiful, ambitious young socialite.

Unfortunately, the similarities with Sieranevada are augmented by Maligan’s ailing health, which means that the screenplay misuses the dying man as a quiet, rather menacing prop, even if he is the centre of all conversations: it is a birthday party, but it could easily have been a memorial service. The topics of faith and drug addiction are other similarities between the two productions, which were written and shot almost simultaneously.

At its most sensitive and ambitious, The Anniversary studies how the past continuously and inexorably affects the present – how it is always there, from the putrid, terrifying skeleton in the closet to the subconscious impulses of the mind, which are never understood but are often the source of various reactions. When not exploring this struggle with time (the characters have lost their power, youth, health and love), the drama strays into insufficiently convincing comic territory. Having cast some of the most respected or popular Romanian actors may help the film’s box-office performance at home, but The Anniversary is only a minor title in a national film industry that keeps reinventing itself.

Aniversarea.2017.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DD+2.0.H.264-playWEB.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1 h 30 min
Size: 	5.44 GiB
Video
Codec: 	h264
Resolution: 	1920x1080 
Aspect ratio:  	16:9
Frame rate: 	24.000 fps
Bit rate: 	8 413 kb/s
BPP: 	0.169
Audio
#1:  	Romanian 2.0ch E-AC-3 @ 224 kb/s

https://nitro.download/view/908E95ED3D2BD3B/Aniversarea.2017.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DD+2.0.H.264-playWEB.mkv

Language(s):Romanian
Subtitles:English, Romanian

The post Dan Chisu – Aniversarea AKA The Anniversary (2017) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

The movie is based on a true story from the end of WWI, in Transylvania. A nobleman who owned some land in Transylvania returns home to find a part of his fortune burned to ashes during late 1918 when power was transferred from AustroHungary to Romania. Looking for revenge, he ordered the killing of innocent Romanian peasants from a neighboring village, which he suspected to be guilty for the losses he suffered. A Romanian officer from Romanian Transylvanian Volunteers Corp, decides to help the villagers to face the menace of the nobleman.

1.57GB | 1h 52m | 752×564 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/66E16A1EE1F02C9/The_Mercenaries’_Trap.mkv
or
https://nitro.download/view/34FA999D6180CCB/The_Mercenaries’_Trap.part1.rar
https://nitro.download/view/6E2EC1FF57C8A61/The_Mercenaries’_Trap.part2.rar

Language:Romanian
Subtitles:None

The post Sergiu Nicolaescu – Capcana mercenarilor AKA The Mercenaries’ Trap (1981) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Defying threats coming from leaders of the fascist Iron Guard movement, music-hall comedian and theatre manager Costica Caratase (whos character is based on legendary real-life actor and theatre director Constantin Tanas) prepares his new show – a satirical musical comedy that pokes fun at The Iron Guard and Nazi Germany. A day before the premiere, Caratase is kidnapped, his assistant, Ionel Friedman murdered…

2.18GB | 2h 36m | 940×400 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/7EEB8B5386DAFEE/The_Actor_and_the_Savages.mkv
or
https://tezfiles.com/file/8461b446a2f55/The_Actor_and_the_Savages.mp4

Language(s):Romanian
Subtitles:None

The post Manole Marcus – Actorul si salbaticii AKA The Actor and the Savages (1975) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Description
Deep in the Transylvanian Alps, the Archangels gold mine is the stage for an epic battle of characters. The arrogant owner is struggling with perceptions of ghosts in the mind of the miners. A maverick free-lance miner is helping him to find the source of terrifying noises that frightened his workers. A story of love, greed and betrayal having the rugged landscape of central Transylvania as a background. With few notable exceptions, everyone seems to have forgotten the biblical “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also (Matthew 6:21)”

Imdb User review
Still burning news, 16 April 2005
Author: tlespagnol from Romania

This movie, as well as others from Nicolae Margineanu is now available on DVD with subtitles in English, German, French and Spanish. Look for Ager-film Editions in the web. It’s seldom enough for Romanian films to be worth mentioning. Shot a year after the famous “Pandureanca”, we notice a bit of the same mysterious atmosphere produced by awesome landscapes and silent looks. Some of the landscapes shown in this film are now endangered by the project of a Canada-based mining company which projects to create there the largest open-air gold-mine in Europe. Fears for the ecological balance of the whole region is big. Gold still drives people crazy, thus making the film of a burning actuality.

974MB | 01:32:30 | 640×480 | avi

https://nitro.download/view/9AC18245965CD4F/Flacari_pe_comori.avi
https://nitro.download/view/2ACAD5E239EF51C/Flacari_pe_comori.Deutsch.srt
https://nitro.download/view/1E33E4C3560FE2D/Flacari_pe_comori.English.srt
https://nitro.download/view/8D50DA0D9C787C2/Flacari_pe_comori.Espanol.srt
https://nitro.download/view/B56EB7EAB07DD41/Flacari_pe_comori.Francais.srt
https://nitro.download/view/4CF7025E515F543/flacari_extras.rar

Language(s):Romanian
Subtitles:English, French, Spanish, German .srt

The post Nicolae Margineanu – Flacari pe comori aka Flames Over Treasures [+Extras] (1988) first appeared on Cinema of the World.