Nicolae Albani
2021
The Snails' Senator
Mircea Daneliuc
Dorel Vișan, Cecilia Bârbora
This Romanian dramatic comedy offers metaphorical commentary on life after Ceausescu's reign as it tells the story of a rural community turned topsy-turvy in their mad quest for the snails a prominent senator has requested for his dinner. The trouble begins when a rather imposing, pompous senator comes to visit a small rural Romanian town for a ribbon-cutting ceremony for their new hydro-electric dam. After he finishes his speech, the senator is accosted by a Swiss film crew eager to interview him. The senator is inordinately concerned with presenting a positive image of Romania to the world at large and so when he learns that he and the journalists are to stay at the same villa, does everything he came to make sure that they see nothing scandalous.
The Snails' Senator
Glissando
Mircea Daneliuc
Ştefan Iordache, Tora Vasilescu
In a devastating story rife with visual metaphors, Romanian director Mircea Daneliuc traces the slow mental disintegration of a confirmed gambler, using his disorder as an allusion to a greater national and social disorder. Set in the 1930s, the middle-class gambler meets an elderly man who seems to bring him good luck at the gaming tables. Rather than treasure his friendship and the good fortune it brings, the gambler takes advantage of his friend, and by his actions drives the man to suicide. Unable to reconcile his own mental demons, the gambler wanders through the house of his dead friend, and his experiences there only serve to unsettle his mind more and more and more. In the last reels of the film, the fantasies of the hero's deranged mind take over.
Glissando
