The screening of Was It or Was It Not? [trailer, film focus] in the Directors’ Fortnight was punctuated by giggles this morning. With limited financial and technical resources, young Romanian director Corneliu Porumboiu has made a tender and offbeat debut feature that had the honour of being selected for the Cinéfondation at the Festival Residence last year.

"Revolutions are like lampposts, first they light up in the middle and then they spread to the whole town," comments Pépé Pisconi with a flippant philosophical air. On a makeshift television set, his incredulous followers – Manescu, a teacher, and Jdrescu, the TV show host (often out of the frame due to an inexperienced cameraman) – are bewildered.
The big question this Christmas Day is has the revolution of December 22 1989, the day of the fall of dictator Ceausescu and Communism in Romania happened or not in this small rural town? Audiences could not mistake East of Bucarest for a comedy. Between Manescu, up to his eyes in debt and vodka, Pisconi, with his Father Christmas costume and souvenirs of marriage, and Jdrescu, a journalist, this absurd yet serious question, Porumboiu’s finely directed still shots and miniature scenes paint a contemporary portrait of Romania, full of economic, human and historical ordeals. The closing scenes of the dilapidated lampposts lighting up in the run-down town finally provide an answer to this question, albeit not a very clear one.

A graduate of Budapest’s Universitatea de Arta Teatrala si Cinematografica (UNATC), Poriumbu has directed and produced several shorts, including A Trip to the City, a previous award winner at Cannes in 2004, and Liviu’s Dream [trailer], presented in the Forum sidebar this year at Berlin.

Sold internationally by France’s The Coproduction Office, East of Bucarest was produced for a derisory budget by the director’s company, 42Km Film. The film took only a month to make, had a few sponsors and the usual partners. On the artistic side, the film may also a patchwork, but a successful one.