12:08 EAST OF BUCHAREST

It is 22 December, sixteen years after the fall of Ceaușescu, in a small town east of Bucharest. Jderescu, owner of the local television station, hosts a talk show meant to settle one question: was there a revolution in this town on 22 December 1989 – or did people only reach the market square after the dictator had fled at 12:08? Facing him as witnesses are the history teacher Mănescu, who cannot get his debts under control, and the pensioner Piscoci, who is bracing himself for another Christmas alone. What is meant as contemporary history falls apart on camera: the more callers contradict one another, the more fragile the memories become. Corneliu Porumboiu’s “12:08 East of Bucharest” (Romania 2006) is a film about the gap between history and what people make of it afterwards.

Porumboiu directs his first feature film as a dry comedy about truth and memory, its punchlines arising from the contradictions between the witnesses. At Cannes in 2006 the film received the Caméra d’Or for best first feature. “12:08 East of Bucharest” was shown at Around the World in 14 Films in Berlin in 2008.

Shown at the 2008 edition of Around the World in 14 Films.

All films 2008 · Film Archive