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With R.M.N., Bad Luck Banging (not to mention a new film from Radu Jude this year), Întregalde, and more in recent years, the Romanian New Wave is alive and well. One of the most acclaimed films coming out of the country as of late is Men of Deeds, the new drama from Two Lottery Tickets director Paul Negoescu.

Winner of 6 Gopo Awards aka the Romanian Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Editing, the drama will be released on August 4 at NYC’s Quad in NY and August 11 at LA’s Laemmle Royal from Dekanalog. Ahead of the release of the film, which has drawn comparisons to Coens and Twin Peaks, we’re pleased to exclusively debut the U.S. trailer.

Here’s the synopsis: “A middle-aged police chief (Iulian Postelnicu) goes on with his job and modest life in a small town,...

When “Avatar 2: Way of the Water” surged to the top of the Romanian box office earlier this year to become the highest-grossing film of all time, it marked an auspicious sign for a theatrical business still looking to recover from the doldrums of the coronavirus pandemic.

Yet local industry-watchers were even more encouraged to see a historic first in 2022, with two Romanian films cracking the top 10 at the year-end box office — a striking achievement for an industry that hasn’t historically been known for cranking out crowd-pleasing hits.

Topping the list was “Teambuilding,” a satirical workplace comedy from directors Matei Dima, Alex Coteț and Cosmin Nedelcu, which briefly reigned as the top-grossing film ever in Romania before being knocked from its perch by James Cameron’s blockbuster, which has raked in more than $8.3 million to date.

Meanwhile, first-time filmmaker Cristian Ilișuan’s “Mirciulică,” a comedy about a 30-year-old forced...

Exclusive: Dekanalog has picked up North American rights to the Sarajevo competition title Men of Deeds, the latest feature from Romanian filmmaker Paul Negoescu.

Men of Deeds played Making Waves, NYC’s annual festival dedicated to showcasing contemporary Romanian contemporary cinema, on April 2nd, with Negoescu and his Director of Photography Ana Drăghici in attendance. Dekanalog will release the film later in the year.

The film is up for 10 Romanian Academy Awards this year, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Screenplay. The story follows Ilie, a village policeman who enjoys an easy life. His passivity during a series of violent events soon turns him into an accomplice to murder. Tension accumulates in the village, forcing Ilie to make a final decision.

The official film synopsis reads: A middle-aged police chief goes on with his job and modest life in a small town, dreaming of having an orchard, managing regular...

Having failed to cut it in the city, mild-mannered Romanian cop Ilie takes a lower-pressure job as a police chief in a rural village near the Moldovan border. Expecting a quieter, easier life of mostly benign duties, he instead encounters even more violence and moral rot than he did before. That he’s surprised suggests Ilie (played by Iulian Postelnicu with a permanent woebegone grimace) hasn’t spent much time watching his own country’s cinema. An exceedingly mordant comedy that gradually bleeds out to tragedy, Paul Negoescu’s “Men of Deeds” is another Romanian exercise in finding personal and institutional corruption under every upturned stone, behind every unlocked small-town door, in every heavily conditional handshake. Audiences won’t be nearly as startled, but it’s bleakly compelling all the same.

Back in 2016, Negoescu scored a major homegrown hit in Romania with his jaunty, shambolic crowdpleaser “Two Lottery Tickets,” a...

Paul Negoescu’s fourth feature, “Men of Deeds,” which world premieres in competition Sunday at the Sarajevo Film Festival, is at first glance a departure from the Romanian director’s previous work. Set in the rural region of Bucovina, it’s a world removed from the swanky bars and bistros of his last film, the Bucharest-set “The Story of a Summer Lover.”

The film follows llie (Iulian Postelnicu), a small-town police chief who hopes to settle into a modest, comfortable life. A man of low expectations and dubious morals, he sets his sights on a small plot of land that’s up for sale — an orchard in the countryside where he imagines he can make a fresh start.

Nothing, however, goes according to plan. Before long Ilie is being thwarted by bad choices and haunted by past misdeeds, leading to an inevitable reckoning after a series of violent events compels...

When the first edition of what would become the Sarajevo Film Festival was held in 1995, the Bosnian capital was in the final year of a devastating, four-year siege. Electricity shortages plunged the city into darkness, while food and hard currency were scarce. The inaugural screenings were held in the basement of a bombed-out building – a literal hole-in-the-wall – where tickets could be purchased with cigarettes instead of cash.

The annual event that emerged from the rubble didn’t just contribute to the cultural life of the city. In the early days after the siege, organizers and local clean-up crews got to work around Sarajevo, refurbishing historic buildings that had been destroyed by the shelling and converting them into festival venues. “Everyone who was involved felt that they were contributing to this rebuilding,” says festival director Jovan Marjanović. “The city was almost fully destroyed. And the festival was the place, and this time in the summer,...

Paul Negoescu directs story of a village policeman caught up in violent events.

Screen can reveal the first trailer for Paul Negoescu’s Romanian police drama Men Of Deeds, ahead of the film’s world premiere in competition at Sarajevo Film Festival this month.

German firm Patra Spanou is handling sales on the title, which follows a village policeman in his late thirties, who is put in a dark place by his past choices and a chain of violent events.

It is Romanian filmmaker Negoescu’s fourth feature, but the first time he has directed from a script by another...

Boutique German sales agent Patra Spanou Film has acquired international sales rights to “Men of Deeds,” the fourth feature by Romanian director Paul Negoescu (“Two Lottery Tickets”), which will be presented in a closed screening for industry guests on June 24 at the Transilvania Film Festival.

The film tells the story of llie (Iulian Postelnicu), a small-town police chief who wants to build a modest, comfortable life for himself but makes all the wrong choices. Middle-aged and alienated, he feels the need to be a part of something – to build an orchard, even a home. But his past combines with a series of violent events to push him toward a dark place, where he’s desperate to find solutions in his search for justice.

“Men of Deeds” is produced by Anamaria Antoci and co-produced by Poli Angelova. Production companies are Papillon Film, Tangaj Production, Screening Emotions and Avanpost Production.

Negoescu said...