Studioul cinematografic „Bucureşti"

1957 film adaptation of Romanian playwright Ion Luca Caragiale's novella “Două loturi” (Two Lottery Tickets, 1901). The scenario was written by director Jean Georgescu, one of the most skilled Romanian filmmakers of the 1940s and 1950s, while the directing belongs to Aurel Miheleş and Gheorghe Naghi, at that time both recently graduated from the All-Union State Institute of Cinematography in Moscow. This is the second feature film in colour from Romania. Despite the great public success, the film was often criticized by reviewers, mostly for its unhandy directing from the two debutants. Miheleş and Naghi would however continue their collaboration and release another two Caragiale adaptations, of which “Telegrame” (Telegrams, 1959) was nominated for the Palme d'Or (Golden Palm) at the 1960 edition of the Cannes festival.

Jacob (Dorel Visan) is a gold miner who risks his life daily to support his wife, mother-in-law, and four children in this socio-political drama. Under the rule of an oppressive monarchy backed by military force, the miners often resort to stealing gold to compensate for their meager wages. Workers are subjected to strip searches and are forced to take laxatives by the often brutal guards and inspectors as they look for stolen gold, and Jacob raises his vocal objections over the treatment of his fellow workers.

Six widows demand compensation for the death of their husbands, who were killed during a worker's strike. The women are arrested and taken to the police quarters, where the authorities try to make them retract their statements, but it turns out they're not so easily intimidated.

Adaptation based on the sketch "Doi vecini" by Tudor Arghezi.

The communists are taking over the boyar land and do the agrarian reform.

The Romanian Ministry of State Security has learned that foreign intelligence is hunting for plans for blue mines, where strategic raw materials are mined. This task is carried out by a gang led by a spy named Sea Cat.

The Romanian army faces the German army in the epic battles of Marasti, Marasesti and Oituz, marking a turning point in World War 1.

The story takes place early in the 20th century in Eastern Romania, where a famous outlaw lived kind of a Clyde with many Bonnies legend in the landscape of the Danube Delta.

This 1957 Romanian short animation and Cannes Film Festival winner skilfully and with incredible artistic expression manages to condense the entire narrative of human evolutionary theory into a ten minute short film. Not only that, he eerily anticipates the communist triumph of the USSR launching the first man into space by a few years.

Screened in the "Computers, robots and machine vision in Socialist Romania" program

Useful film featuring a firefighter robot.