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Keeping up with the journal literature
Want an easy way to keep up with the journal literature for a national or regional cinema? And you use a mobile device? You can install the BrowZine app and create a custom Bookshelf of your favorite journal titles. Then you will get the Table of Contents (ToCs) of your favorite journals automatically delivered to you when they become available. Once you have the ToC's you can download and read the articles you want.
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Introduction to Romanian cinema
Lumière films were shown in Bucharest less than five months after their first screenings in Paris in December 1895. The earliest Romanian films were on a medical theme and made by Gheorghe Marinescu in 1898 and 1899. The earliest feature film was Independenta Romaniei/War of Independence (Aristide Demetriade, 1912), and many films made during the 1910s were based on theatrical productions. By the 1920s a network of cinemas had developed, showing films based on Romanian folk myths (influenced by the western), comedies, and musicals: of these, Jean Mihail’s Manasse (1925) is deemed artistically noteworthy. Romania became a communist republic in 1947 and the film industry was nationalized in 1948. Socialist Realism quickly became the dominant form, with instructional films showing the triumphs of social improvement in rural areas. Victor Iliu is a key director from this period. In contrast to other Eastern European countries such as Czechoslovakia (see czech republic, film in; slovakia, film in) and Hungary, Romania did not experience a ‘thaw’ in the 1950s, and the Buftea studios maintained a Soviet-style output of some fifteen features a year through the decade, with documentary, animation, and children’s films key genres (see eastern european animation). ...
Kuhn, A., & Westwell, G. (2020). Romania, film in. In A Dictionary of Film Studies. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 22 May. 2021
Searching the online catalog
You can use the subject heading below to find resources in the online catalog. The call number range is also included.
- motion pictures romaniaThe call number range PN 1993.5 .R6 is located on Baker Stacks 4.
- motion pictures europe, easternThe call number range PN 1993.5 .E82 is located on Baker Stacks 4.
Selected book titles
The BFI companion to Eastern European and Russian cinema by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .E2 B44 2000ISBN: 9780851707532This work maps the rich, varied cinema of Eastern Europe, Russia and the former USSR. Over 200 entries cover a variety of topics spanning a century of endeavour and turbulent history from Czech animation to Soviet montage. It includes entries on actors and directors and key figures like Eisenstein.
Contemporary Romanian cinema: the history of an unexpected miracle by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .R6 N37 2013ISBN: 9780231167451Over the last decade, audiences worldwide have become familiar with highly acclaimed films from the Romanian New Wave such as 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2007), The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (2005), and 12:08 East of Bucharest (2006). However, the hundred or so years of Romanian cinema leading to these accomplishments have been largely overlooked. This book is the first to provide in-depth analyses of essential works ranging from the silent period to contemporary productions. In addition to relevant information on historical and cultural factors influencing contemporary Romanian cinema, this volume covers the careers of daring filmmakers who approached various genres despite fifty years of Communist censorship. ...
Directory of world cinema: East Europe by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5 .E82 D57 2011ISBN: 9781841504643Since the 1970s, the works of filmmakers from the nations of Eastern Europe; among them, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Béla Tarr, István Szabó, and Jirí Menzel have experienced an international upsurge in popularity. Charting the trends of the national cinemas of Poland, Hungary, and Yugoslavia, as well as the lesser-known industries of Serbia, Slovakia, and Romania, this new volume in the Directory of World Cinema series explores important genres in the cinema of Eastern Europe, including war films, new wave, comedies, and surrealist art cinema, with essays on the most prolific filmmakers, in-depth reviews of key titles, and suggested resources for further study. ...
The Romanian cinema of nationalism: historical films as propaganda and spectacle by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1995.9 .H5 C64 2018ISBN: 9781476668192Prior to the collapse of communism, Romanian historical movies were political, encouraging nationalistic feelings and devotion to the state. Vlad the Impaler and other such iconic figures emerged as heroes rather than loathsome bloodsuckers, celebrating a shared sense of belonging. The past decade has, however, presented Romanian films in which ordinary people are the stars--heroes, go-getters, swindlers and sore losers. The author explores a wide selection, old and new, of films set in the Romanian past.
Romanian new wave cinema: an introduction by Call Number: Baker-Berry PN 1993.5.R6 P67 2014ISBN: 9780786479375Modern Romanian filmmaking has received wide international recognition. From 2001 to 2011, promising young filmmakers have been embraced as important members of European cinema. The country developed a new fervor for film-making and a dozen new movies have received international awards and recognition from some of the most important critics worldwide. This development, sometimes called "New Wave cinema," is fully explored in this book. By using a comparative approach and searching for similarities among cinematic styles and trends, the study reveals that the young Romanian directors are part of a larger, European, way of film-making. ...
Other library resource(s)
Romanian cinema from Oxford Bibliographies Online by Call Number: Electronic resourceUntil the mid-2000s the scholarship on Romanian film has been written almost exclusively in Romanian. Its pioneering scholars were D. I. Suchianu and Ion Cantacuzino, who published books on the cinema in the 1930s. Since Romania had no consistent (and relevant) cinematic output until the 1950s, its historical studies came also into being late, in the 1960s. The year 1989 was another turning point in Romanian film historiography, spurring post-socialist reconsiderations, as was 1996, when the celebration of one hundred years of cinema witnessed the publication of several historical studies. ...
Finding journal articles
Articles and other writings about Romanian cinema can be found in different publications. Our collection does not include any journals which look exclusively at Romanian cinema. However, there are several titles that look at Eastern European film. You can use Film & Television Literature Index to find articles or use the search box at the top of the page.
Kinokultura: new Russian cinemaCall Number: Electronic journalAn open access, online journal for Russian, former Soviet republics and Central Asian cinema.
Film & television literature index by Call Number: Electronic resourceUse this index to find articles about this national cinema.
Screen studies collection by Call Number: Electronic resourceA comprehensive survey of current publications related to film scholarship alongside detailed filmographies. This collection includes the FIAF International Index to Film Periodicals Database and the detailed and complementary filmographies created by the American Film Institute (AFI) and the British Film Institute.
The web of science citation databases by Call Number: Electronic resourceThe online version of 3 separate ISI indexes: Arts & Humanities Citation Index, Science Citation Index and, Social Sciences Citation Index.
Selected movie titles
Find more Romanian film titles in the library's online catalog.
4 months, 3 weeks & 2 days by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #7043ISBN: 9781594451065Two college roommates have 24 hours to make the ultimate choice as they finalize arrangements for a black market abortion.
12:08 east of Bucharest by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #6080On the sixteenth year anniversary of the fall of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, a local anchorman of a nearby provincial town invites two of his acquaintances to share their moments of revolutionary glory on his talk show. One is an impish, insightful retiree who sometimes poses as Santa Claus, the other a henpecked, hard-drinking teacher who has just devoted his entire salary to his drinking debts. Together they will remember the day when they stormed their town hall calling "down with Ceausescu." Or did they?
Cum mi-am petrecut sfârșitul lumii = The way I spent the end of the world by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #7420ISBN: 9781428175259Bucharest 1989, the last year of Ceaușescu's dictatorship. Eva, 17, lives with her parents and her 7 year-old brother Lalalilu. One day at school, Eva and her boyfriend accidentally break a bust of Ceaușescu. They are forced to confess their crime before a disciplinary committee. Eva is expelled from school and transferred to a reformatory establishment. There she meets Andrei and decides to escape Romania with him. Lalalilu is more and more convinced that Ceaușescu is the main reason for Eva's decision to leave. So, with his friends from school, he devises a plan to kill the dictator.
Eu când vreau sǎ fluier, fluier = If I want to whistle, I whistle by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #19652Silviu has only two weeks left before his release from a hostile juvenile detention center. But when his mother, who abandoned him long ago returns to take his younger brother away--a brother Silviu raised like a son--those two weeks become an eternity. While his outcries for help fall on deaf ears, he is introcuced to a beautiful social worker that he can only dream of being close to. Faced with a slew of conflicting emotions and wild with desperation, Silviu is driven to a surprising act of defiance as he makes a last grasp for freedom.
Moartea domnului Lǎzǎrescu = Death of Mr. Lazarescu by Call Number: Jones Media DVD #4572A 60-ish widower, living alone with his cats, feels sick enough one evening to call an ambulance. This is the beginning of his Dantesque odyssey deep into the bowels of a big city medical establishment as Mr. Lazarescu and his paramedic search for medical care.
Internet resource(s)
- 10 essential Romanian directors from BFI Film ForeverRomanian cinema has exploded so spectacularly onto the international scene since the turn of the millennium that it’s easy to forget that it had a 20th-century tradition as well. ...
