Product Review

The final fifteen years of the Ceausescu regime were the worst in Romania's history. Nonetheless, the propaganda machine of that time relentlessly referred to that period as the country s golden age. Using the moniker as a starting point, Tales from the Golden Age spins the most popular, comic and bizarre urban legends from that harrowing period into a hilariously surreal omnibus film.

Acclaimed director Cristian Mungiu (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days) wrote the scripts and commissioned the most talented young Romanian filmmakers to collaborate with him, including Razvan Marculescu (co-writer of The Death of Mr. Lazarescu and Tuesday, After Christmas) and Constantin Popescu (Portrait of the Fighter As a Young Man). With wit and style to spare, Tales perfectly re-captures the mood of a nation trying to survive under the twisted logic of a brutal dictatorship. It was an era when food was more important than money, freedom more important than love and survival more important than principles.