Radu Jude takes two days in the life of an overworked Romanian production assistant, Angela (the incredible Ilinca Manolache), and gives us an urgent, pissed off, sourly funny polemic on the state of late capitalism that anyone can relate to. Tasked with filming half a dozen audition tapes with accident victims for a corporate work safety video, Angela also makes time to post scabrous TikTok videos as her cult alter-ego, Bobita, using a filter to transform herself into a misogynist Andrew Tate clone. On top of which Jude also throws in parallel clips from a (genuine) 1981 Romanian movie, Angela Moves On, about a Bucharest taxi driver played by Dorina Lazar. The Godard of our times, Jude is an essential filmmaker for anyone serious about political cinema. Exploitation, discrimination and hypocrisy are his targets; dialectics are his dynamite. Adventurous, audacious, infuriating and inspiring, the film won the Special Jury Prize at Locarno last month to set beside the Golden Bear he won at Berlin for Bad Luck Banging, or Looney Porn two years ago.
The film further confirms Radu Jude as one of the most idiosyncratic, uncompromising, and intellectually vigorous of living filmmakers.
Slant Magazine
Special Jury Prize, Locarno 2023
Ilinca Manolache, Ovidiu Pîrșan, Nina Hoss, Dorina Lazăr, Katia Pascariu
Romania/Luxembourg/
France/Croatia
2023
Showcase
In Romanian with English subtitles
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits
Executive Producer
Diana Caravia
Producer
Ada Solomon, Adrian Sitaru
Screenwriter
Radu Jude
Cinematography
Marius Panduru
Editor
Cătălin Cristuțiu
Production Design
Cristian Niculescu, Andreea Popa
Director
Radu Jude
Radu Jude is a Romanian director and screenwriter. In 2006, he made the short film The Tube with a Hat, winner of more than 50 international awards. Jude’s feature debut The Happiest Girl in the World (2009) was selected for more than 50 international film festivals. Titles such as Aferim!, Scarred Hearts and Everybody in Our Family followed and won multiple awards. I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians (2018) won the Crystal Globe for Best Film and Label Europa Cinema Prize in Karlovy Vary in 2018 and Bad Luck Banging, or Loony Porn the Golden Bear at Berlin in 2021.
Filmography: The Happiest Girl in the World (2006); Aferim! (2015); Scarred Hearts (2016); I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians (2018); Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn (2021)
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
Mistura
This foodie film from Peru tells the story of a newly single socialite reinventing herself — and the local cuisine — after her husband has left her for a younger woman. Along the way, she finds support from unexpected places...
Departures
Two lads meet at an airport gate and begin monthly trips to Amsterdam together. Their chemistry is off the charts, but it's Jake who's calls the shots while Benji is the one who's emotionally invested. Comparisons to Pillion and Trainspotting are on mark.
Time and Water
Sara Dosa (Fire of Love) turns her attentions from volcanoes to glaciers in this singular, personal collaboration with the Icelandic writer Andri Snær Magnason, who ruminates on the loss of ties to family and to landscape.
The Richest Woman in the World
Isabelle Huppert plays cosmetics CEO Marianne in this teasingly ambivalent satire inspired by the Bettancourt Affair, when L'Oreal heir Francoise Bettancourt scandalized France by frittering away her fortune on a notorious celebrity photographer.
Le rêve américain
This French crowdpleaser about a couple of nobodies who set themselves up as basketball player agents hits all the right story beats. You wouldn't believe it except that it happens to be true.
Image: © Mika Cotellon