Cristian Mungiu: 4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days (4 luni, 3 săptămâni și 2 zile)

4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days (4 luni, 3 săptămâni ăi 2 zile), Cristian Mungiu, 113’, Romania, ZDF 12.5.2010, OV with German subtitles

In the mid-1960s, abortions were banned in Romania. By the end of the Ceaucescu regime, around half a million women had died as a consequence. Cristian Mungiu, a director of the New Romanian Wave, takes up this taboo theme in his second feature-length film in 2007. He shows 24 hours in the lives of two young women in 1987. “The hostel in which the technology students share a room is an accurate reflection of the economically and morally bankrupt Ceaucescu regime of the late eighties,” says the editorial text, “a maze of dependencies, bribery and calculated favours.” According to precisely these principles, an illegal abortion is organised and carried out in the film. As though on a stage, each scene unfolds in one shot, with simple and sometimes terrifying depth and complexity.

Cristian Mungiu (*1968) is a well-known Romanian director, writer and producer of the New Romanian Wave, who initially made several short films. In cooperation with Das kleine Fernsehspiel, he made his first two feature films Occident (2003) and 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2010), which won the European Film Award and the Palme d’Or in Cannes. His other films, which have won numerous awards, have also been shown there in competition.