The New Year That Never Came

The fall of Romanian leader Nicolae Ceausescu is explored in this 1989-set debut.Romania, a few days before Christmas in 1989, and the Nicolae Ceausescu regime is in its death throes. Not that the ordinary people of Bucharest know it – the news of an uprising in the city of Timisoara and the subsequent massacre of protestors by government forces is suppressed and sanitised, and a paralysing fear of the dictatorship still prevents many from speaking out against it.With his accomplished feature debut, Bogdan Mureşanu views a pivotal moment in Romanian history – the fall of the Ceausescu regime – through the eyes and the interconnected stories of six ordinary people. It’s a confident and, at times, savagely funny work which builds to a blisteringly powerful conclusion.Wendy Ide, Screen International