directed by Silviu Purcărete, drama, 145 min, eng subtitles
written by Silviu Purcărete
with Dimeny Aron, George Mihaita, Razvan Vasilescu, Constantin Chiriac, Horatiu Malaele, Ofelia Popii
1960s Romania. Serafim, a young doctor, is sent for his first assignment to a hospital in Palilula, a small town lost on the map. Palilula, an authentic "Macondo" from the region of Oltenia, is a place where the insignificant coexists with the charming. In the hospital, the patients are perfectly healthy, and one of their favourite entertainments is to assist with the dissections in the morgue. The rest of the town's population is both charming and deranged, forever isolated in drunkenness, feasting, and orgy. Restless and lazy, happy and melancholy, they are always there, together, in the centre of the world, on the terrace with oleanders, at the hospital and at the Boema Hotel.
Serafim gradually adapts to the life in this world and ends up belonging to it, even without wanting. By the end, Palilula disintegrates, characters disappear, die, each and every one of them ends, in his specific way, his fabulous existence.
The reality doesn't even matter as long as it's told. Furthermore, the reality doesn't even exist unless it's told...
"The film has been described as provocative and it certainly is that. If you are interested in unique interpretations of what life was like in Eastern Europe under communist rule, then this may be the acid trip for you. Somewhere in Palilula is an experience you should undertake only if you are able to put aside your insistence that everything, or anything, should make sense." (Maryann O'Connor, New Empress Magazine)
With the support of