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12:08 East of Bucharesta fost sau n-a fost?Directed byCorneliu PorumboiuRomania, 2006, 89mScreenplay: Corneliu PorumboiuDirector of photography: MariusPanduruCast: Mircea Andreescu, Teodor Corban,Ion SăpdaruFestivals: Caméra d’Or for Best FirstFeature at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival,Grand Prize and the Audience Award inTransilvania IFF| MON. DEC 2, 1:00 pm, FBTWinner of the 2006 Camera D’Or prize, this sociopolitical satirefocuses on a group of characters who commemorate the 16th anniversaryof Ceaușescu’s fall on December 22, 2005. “12:08” refers tothe exact time of day in which Ceaușescu fled, whereas the originalRomanian title roughly translates as “Was There or Was There Not?”(a revolution in our town) – the central question being hotly debatedthroughout the film. What seems like a formally simple and straightforwardstory is actually a sophisticated and wryly funny reflection onthe scope of the Romanian Revolution of 1989 that ended communismin Romania, and how even recent historical events take on shapeand meaning according to how they explain or justify the present. InRomanian with English subtitles.Corneliu Porumboiu Retrospective21