The Way I Spent the End of the World (2006)
"Cum mi-am petrecut sfarsitul lumii" (original title)

In communist era Romania, people live with hope for a new life of freedom.

Director:

Catalin Mitulescu

Writers:

Catalin Mitulescu, Andreea Valean,

Stars:

Dorotheea Petre, Timotei Duma, Anca Ahrfrescu

3 wins & 1 nomination.

Cast

Credited cast:
Dorotheea Petre	...	Eva Matei - a seventeen-year-old girl
Timotei Duma	...	Lalalilu 'Lali' Matei - Eva's little brother
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Anca Ahrfrescu	...	Soçia lui Nucu
Ioan Albu
Sergiu Anghel	...	The headmaster
Monalisa Basarab	...	Professorà cor
Ionut Becheru	...	Alexandru 'Alex' 'Vomicã' - a high school student in love with Eva
Adrian Bulboaca	...	The second guitarist
Ion Carangea
Jean Constantin	...	Uncle Floricã
Flaviu Crisan	...	Securitat policeman
Radu Câmpean	...	The soloist
Mircea Diaconu	...	Grigore Matei - Eva and Lali's father
Sorin Dinculescu	...	Profesonul panait
Bogdan Dumitrache	...	The doctor

Storyline

Bucharest 1989 - the last year of Ceausescu's dictatorship. Eva lives with her parents and her 7 year old brother, Lalalilu. One day at school, Eva and her boyfriend accidentally break a bust of Ceausescu. They are forced to confess their crime before a disciplinary committee and Eva is expelled from school and transferred to a reformatory establishment. There she meets Andrei, and decides to escape Romania with him. Lalalilu becomes convinced that Ceausescu is the main reason for Eva's decision to leave. So with his friends from school he devises a plan to kill the dictator.

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Plot Keywords:

romania | male rear nudity | communist indoctrination | assassination plot | fall of communism | 

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Genres:

Drama

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Details

Official Sites:

Official site [ro]

Country:

Romania France

Language:

Romanian

Release Date:

30 August 2006 (France)

Also Known As:

The Way I Spent the End of the World

Filming Locations:

Bucharest, Romania

Box Office

Budget:

€1,500,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Acht Frankfurt, Briarcliff Films, Canal+

Technical Specs

Runtime:

106 min 106 min

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Trivia

Best European Project Award at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival.

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Goofs

There is a longer scene in the movie showing a bus trying to turn around on muddy soil. The bus is a Rocar bus, which has been produced only after 1990, and it has stickers on its doors, which surely have not been used before 1989.

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Soundtracks

"Imnul de stat al rsr"
Written by Ciprina Parumbesque
Copyright 2006 by Strada Films & Les Films Pelléas

User Reviews

A beautiful coming of age story during Communist Romania

Not too strong on plot, "How I spent the end of the world" is strong on mood and feeling, and it very well compensates. I usually don't go crazy about "mood pieces" but this is definitely more. I caught the film at the up and coming Transylvania Film Festival (Tiff for short) where the film had its national premiere after a decent reception at Cannes only a few weeks earlier. The film is a MUST for any Romanian who has lived through the Ceausescu years as the filmmakers went through great pains to accurately depict the mood of those days from general landscape to the toy trucks, school uniforms and furniture all Romanians possessed and shared during an era of uniform mass-production. The film stands out as the harbinger of something historians will hopefully refer to as "the Romanian New Wave." With films like this, and "Marilena from P7" as well as Porumboiu's "Has it Been, Has it not Been" (another personal take on the shattering Revolution of 1989), Romanian cinema is finally entering the world circuit, and will hopefully stay there for a while.