Institute History
Description
Set in Bucharest after the fall of Ceau?escu, Pioneers' Palace captures the chaotic essence of the time. Based on the director's own experience, the story follows a group of Romanian teenagers who, driven by the unprecedented freedoms of a free-market economy, open a disco in their high school. Surrounded by entrepreneurial opportunity and almost no limits, the teens visit Bucharest’s first-ever brothel and are exposed to the dark underbelly of an unregulated society when they are faced with potential exposure to AIDS.
Following the screening, there will be a conversation with director Bobby Paunescu, (producer, The Death of Mr. Lazarescu), Andrei Ujica (director, The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu), and Corneliu Porumboiu (director, 12:05 East of Bucharest and Police, adjective), who will discuss both the unique way the film was made, a collaboration between film students and established filmmakers, as well as the noted artistic elements that make up the Romanian New Wave style of cinema that launched 10 years ago. —T.G.