The New Year that Never Came

This movie feels like 4 shorts mixed into one long feature, but not in a bad way. It presents 4 different stories during the last days of Ceausescu's regime. The director gracefully navigates through the material and unveils many social mechanisms, fears and motivations. Although there are signs of living in an absurd political regime, permeated by the fear of State Security, and everybody tries not to make the slightest mistake and look good in the eyes of their superiors, nevertheless there is kindness, emotion and empathy between people. It is a movie about how the small folk can swim across the turbulent waters of history, so to say, without losing their hope and sense of humor. Which reminds me: this is really fun to watch, it has many good lines and hilarious situations. Thumbs up for the director, the cast and the whole team for this piece of art!

My father tried two times to cross the border (with his friend) during communism, the first time being caught at the border with Yugoslavia and 2nd time being caught in Greece, sent back to Romania, and beaten and interrogated exactly like in the movie. Yesterday was a very special night since I assisted at a very special screening together with my father.

In the past years, I was disgusted with any subject related to communism since I hated so much the consequences supported by so many generations of Romanians. We still suffer because of this past dictator, even the ones born after the revolution.

Now I see the importance of going back 'there' to remind us not to repeat the same mistakes.

Very emotional film for the entire sold-out cinema hall... One of the best movies ever made after the Romanian Revolution (1989).

I hope it will be seen by many which dont understand the life under an opressive regime. Very strong acting and well built story presenting , sometimes with excellent humour, the real challenges of the life under Ceausescu's dictatorship.. The movie tells several stories which describe very well the context of the period, how difficult was to keep your own values and how easy was to become paranoid. Low budget film which help the acting performance and story to be the in the center of the project.

Adrian Vancica has an Oscar performance around the Christmas letter of his little son ! I hope it will be Romania's proposal for the Foreign film at Oscars.

The movie follows a few storylines happening in December 1989, just before the revolution started in Bucharest. Apparently, the storylines have nothing in common, except the fear and hate against the communist regime and the movie might seems dull, but once the storylines starts to connect the movie transforms in a masterpiece. The atmosphere of the movie teleports you back in those days, and for the ones who lived the days it creates mixed feelings of nostalgia, sadness and a strange feeling of happiness (maybe because we've remembered the family, the friends and the bright side of our childhood). The way is being produced, reminds a little bit of Crash (2004). Kudos to all the actors for a great performance and thank you, Bogdan Muresan, for a great movie!

By far, one of the greatest Romanian movie from the last years. It has everything: connected stories, dramedy, great acting and overall the disturbing days of Romanian Revolution.

It's funny and at the same time sad, to discover how so many features of us, the Romanians, have their origin in those years and what deep traces those moments of the Revolution have left today. Heroes are among us and we must bring them to light.

It is no coincidence that one of the most common slogans of Romanians is "hope dies last". This film is about hope and about simple Romanians who hope until the last moment.

Thanks to them, today we have freedom and thankfully such wonderful films.