Closer to the Moon (2014)

A Romanian police officer teams up with a small crew of old friends from the World War II Jewish Resistance to pull off a heist by convincing everyone at the scene of the crime that they are only filming a movie.

Director:

Nae Caranfil

Writer:

Nae Caranfil

Stars:

Vera Farmiga, Mark Strong, Harry Lloyd

9 wins & 4 nominations.

Cast

Credited cast:
Vera Farmiga	...	Alice
Mark Strong	...	Max Rosenthal
Harry Lloyd	...	Virgil
Anton Lesser	...	Holban
Joe Armstrong	...	Razvan
Gwyneth Keyworth	...	Lidia
Allan Corduner	...	Flaviu
Christian McKay	...	Iorgu
Andrew Buckley	...	Gogo
Monica Barladeanu	...	Sonia
Frances Cuka	...	Sarah
Martin Hancock	...	Prosecutor
John Henshaw	...	Judge
Tim Plester	...	Dumi
Corneliu Ulici	...	Agent

Storyline

Bucharest 1959. A spectacular Bank heist has the country in an uproar. In post-war Communist Romania it is an unimaginable slap in the face to the iron fisted authorities. Four men and a woman are arrested, tried, convicted and while waiting for their execution... are forced to star in a propaganda film about the crime. All five protagonists were heroes of the resistance during the Second World War and highly placed members of Romanian society. They clearly knew they would be caught and executed.

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Plot Keywords:

woman wearing a gas mask | heist | 

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Genres:

Comedy | Drama

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Country:

Romania USA Italy Poland France

Language:

English

Release Date:

17 April 2015 (USA)

Also Known As:

Gang Rosenthala

Filming Locations:

Romania

Box Office

Budget:

$5,000,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Agresywna Banda,Denis Friedman Productions,Mandragora Movies

Technical Specs

Runtime:

112 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Prior to filming Closer to the Moon (2014) with Vera Farmiga, Mark Strong played the male lead opposite Farmiga's sister Taissa Farmiga in the film Anna (2013).

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Quotes

Moritz: Lord, in thy great bounty, screw the Bolsheviks, give them every disease in the world, ruin them, burn their houses, and send them back to Moscow, Amen.

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Connections

References Reconstruction (2002)

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Soundtracks

It's Magic
Music by Sammy Cahn
Lyrics by Jule Styne
Performed by Loredana Groza

User Reviews

once you go bank robber, you never go back

You've probably never heard of the Ioanid Gang, or the bank robbery that they carried out in Bucharest in 1959. I had never heard of it before I watched Nae Caranfil's "Closer to the Moon". The movie isn't any kind of masterpiece, but sufficiently looks at this incident, and how Romania's Soviet-backed government arrested the gang and forced them to star in a propaganda film reenacting the robbery.

One of the thing that we notice while watching the movie is the hypocrisy of the Eastern Bloc governments. They claimed that they were establishing classless societies but there was a high society (and the people in the government had no qualms about themselves jewelry). Later on, Nicolae Ceaușescu forced women to have as many children as possible, which overfilled Romania's orphanages. Most of the heads of state in the Eastern Bloc were typical ideologues, but Ceaușescu sounded like a mental case.

Anyway, the movie's worth seeing.