"Tales From The Golden Age" Synopsis

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• UK Cinema Release Date: 30/10/2009

• Certificate: 12A

• Genre: Comedy / History

• Run Time: 131

• Director: 

  Hanno Höfer

• Cast: 

  Diana Cavallioti, Radu Iacoban, Vlad Ivanov

20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the momentous events which unfolded across Eastern Europe as people took to the streets, there is now a chance to reflect on life behind the wall, the events which led to the collapse of the Eastern Bloc, and towards the notion of a ‘New Europe‘, what it meant in the immediate aftermath and what if anything has changed in the intervening years. TALES FROM THE GOLDEN AGE

The final 15 years of the Ceausescu regime were the worst in Romania‘s history. Nonetheless, the propaganda machine of that time referred without fail to that period as "the golden age"…

TALES FROM THE GOLDEN AGE focuses on day–to–day life under the dictatorship to warm and often hilarious effect. Written by Palme d‘Or winner Cristian Mungiu (4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS & 2 DAYS), the portmanteau of stories depict the most popular urban myths of the period; a village goes to extremes to prepare for the visit of a party official, a photographer battles with a print deadline in the days before Photoshop, a lonely truck driver finds himself open to temptation, a greedy policeman attempts to gas a live pig in time for Christmas dinner, and Bughi and Crina play Bonnie and Clyde, robbing people of bottled air.

Consistently strong, the cumulative effect of these urban legends at once comic, bizarre, poignant and surprising offer a surreal portrait of life in Romania in the 1980s where undertones of fear, corruption and imprisonment were never far away from the humour and spirit which kept people alive.

Bookended by Communist anthems and credits featuring footage of various party rallies, the film doesn‘t criticise the lunacy of the regime, rather it takes an affectionate, almost nostalgic look at the men, women and children who had to survive it.

TALES FROM THE GOLDEN AGE recaptures the mood of a nation fighting for its voice, in an era during which food was more important than money, freedom more important than love and survival more important than principles.