Photos: www.amintiridinepocadeaur.ro
20 years after the Fall of the Iron Curtain, the Barbican Centre presents Behind the Wall, a symposium and a film season that look at the significance of the Berlin Wall, showcasing films from Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Poland and Germany.
Tales from the Golden Age written by Palme d'Or winner Cristian Mungiu (4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days) and directed by Mungiu and up-and-coming Romanian filmmakers Hanno Höfer, Razvan Marculescu, Constantin Popescu and Ioana Uricaru opens the season.
The film focuses on day-to-day life under the communist dictatorship in Romania, to warm and often hilarious effect. The portmanteau of stories depicts the most popular urban myths of the period. At once comic, bizarre, poignant and surprising, the five tales offer a surreal portrait of life in Romania in the 1980s where undertones of fear, corruption and imprisonment were never far away from the humour and spirit which kept people alive. Tales from the Golden Age recaptures the mood of a nation fighting for its voice, in an era during which food was more important than money, freedom more important than love and survival more important than principles.
Followed by actor Vlad Ivanov in conversation with art and film critic Ben Lewis.
Down with the Wall! - Posters Exhibition 2 - 20 November 2009 Barbican Centre, foyer Cinema 1
Part of Behind the Wall season, this selection of the most interesting posters from 1989-1990 serves as a guide to those democratic changes and provides a stirring record of the complex social and political changes that swept through Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Russia. Admission free
Behind the Wall (7-16 November) is a partnership project between the Barbican Centre, Goethe-Institut, Czech Centre, Polish Cultural Institute, Romanian Cultural Institute, Glaz and the Hungarian Cultural Centre.
When: 13 November 2009, 7.00 pm;
Where: Barbican Centre, Cinema 3, Silk Street, London EC2Y 8DS
Tickets: £7.50 (online), £9.50 (full price), £7.50 (concs), £4.50 (under 15) from https://www.barbican.org.uk/eticketing/selectseat.asp
