In The State of Things, director Stere Gulea portrays a couple, a doctor and his assistant, who are about to marry. The secret police, busy at the time eliminating their opponents, are soon in need of suitable medical certificates confirming they had nothing to do with the deaths of their victims.

The couple have pressure put on them by the secret police into providing the appropriate documents, but the woman refuses to collaborate with the murderers.

She is arrested on a trumped-up charge and convicted of an imaginary fraud. Humiliated, beaten up and raped in prison, her only comfort is the child she is carrying, whose father is not her former lover, but one of the torturers.

Gulea seems intent on revealing life's tragic paradoxes and sad ironies as reflected in recent Romanian history. He exposes the old-fashioned communist commissars who are now pillars of the new "democratic" system and the attitude of those who have regained their freedom and choose to ignore the truth about yesterday's victims.

Adina Darian

Prod co: Studio no.4 "Cinerom", with the Ministry of Culture Studio

Prod: Feleicia Cernaianu

Dir: Stere Gulea

Scr: Stere Gulea, Eugen Uricariu, based on original idea by Lucian Pintilie

Ph: Vivi Dragan Vasile

Ed: Mircea Ciocaltei

Prod des: Mihnea Tautu

Cast: Oana Pellea, Razvan Vasilescu, Dan Condurache, Mara Grigore, Mircea Rusu

Running time: 89 minutes

Int sales: Romaniafilm

Screenings: 23 June, 15.00, Blanik; 26 June, 20.00, Praha; 28 June, 12.00, Lucerna

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