The first feature by Cristi Puiu, who went on to make The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, Stuff and Dough is a youthful road movie that shows the influence of American independent cinema. Ovidiu (Alexandru Papadopol), a skinny teenager with Pink Floyd and Iron Maiden posters on his bedroom walls, foolishly agrees to take a suspicious package from Constanta to Bucharest. Against the wishes of his gangster patron, Ovidiu is accompanied on the trip by two of his slacker friends. The trio hit the road in a beaten up old van, and what follows veers from the mundane to the sinister and the bizarre. Puiu’s dark sense of humour is already evident, as is his notion that Romania is a land of serious contradictions, corruption and brutality.

Plus Cigarettes and Coffee (Un cartus de kent si un pachet de cafea), Cristi Puiu’s prize-winning short about a worker being shut out of the industrial system and a rich young bureaucrat who tries to lend a hand. ROMANIA • 2004 • SUBTITLED • COLOUR • DOLBY STEREO • 13 MIN