Uppercase Print - A Big World Pictures release

Director: Radu Jude
Country: Romania
Year: 2020
Running time: 128 min
In Romanian with English subtitles

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In 1981, chalk slogans written in uppercase letters started appearing in public spaces in the Romanian city of Botoşani. They demanded freedom, alluded to the democratic developments taking place in Romania’s socialist sister countries or simply called for improvements in the food supply. The culprit was Mugur Călinescu, a teenager who was still at school at the time and whose case is documented in the files of the Romanian secret police. Theatre director Gianina Cărbunariu created a documentary play based on this material.

Besides presenting the play, Radu Jude also uses archival footage from Romanian TV of the era. Cooking shows alternate with interrogations, transcripts of wiretapped phone calls with recommendations to exercise instead of taking sedatives. This dialectical montage creates an image of a dictatorial surveillance state, drawing on the authorized popular entertainment of the Ceaușescu regime in order to unmask it.

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PHOTOS

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PLAYDATES

9/24/21 Lightbox Film Center, Philadelphia, PA - U.S. Premiere!

11/5, 8/21 St. Louis International Film Festival, St. Louis, MO (in-person shows)

11/10-23/21 Metrograph, New York, NY - (Virtual Cinema)

Opens 11/12/21 Metrograph, New York, NY (Select in-person shows)

Opens 11/12/21 New Plaza Cinema, New York, NY (Virtual Cinema)

Opens 11/19/21 Laemmle's Royal, West Los Angeles, CA (Select in-person shows)

Opens 11/26/21 Laemmle Virtual Cinema, Los Angeles, CA

Opens 11/26/21 The Guild, Albuquerque, NM (Virtual Cinema)

Opens 11/26/21 Zeitgeist Multi-Discliplinary Arts Center, Araby, LA (in-person shows)

Opens 11/26/21 Epsilon Spires, Brattleboro, VT (Virtual Cinema)

12/3, 4/21 Vancouver Intl. Film Festival Centre, Vancouver, BC (in-person shows)

12/12, 16/21 AFI Silver, Silver Springs, MD (in-person shows)

1/23, 26/22 Austin Film Society, Austin TX (in-person shows)

REVIEWS

“It is a fierce and impassioned denunciation of evil, part of a continuing wave of Romanian filmmaking dealing with the Ceaușescu and post-Ceaușescu eras.” – Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

"The piercing earnestness, very soon snuffed out, that pours from Lazarovici as he addresses us, his face framed close, stands out all the more against the regime's language of ruthless depersonalisation..."
– Carmen Gray, Sight & Sound

“This uncompromising but accessible and involving film should further boost the director's profile on the international circuit.” – Jonathan Romney, Screen International

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