15, 89 mins

Manescu (Ion Sapdaru) wakes with a crippled Christmas tree in his kitchen and a blurred memory of having insulted the Chinese shopkeeper, again. It is payday today, but his fellow teachers are going to pick over his wage packet like vultures, reclaiming debts that the previous month’s drinking have incurred. Groping through the mud of his hangover, he recalls that this afternoon he has agreed to appear on local television to share his memories of the revolution that ousted Ceausescu 16 years ago.

One of the best of the new wave of Romanian cinema, 12:08 East Of Bucharest is a droll delight that questions the nature of historical record and the realities of postcommunist Romania with a slyly comic and disarmingly self-mocking tone. Beautifully composed and lit with a wintry palette of sludgy blues and remorseful greys, the film makes a virtue of its tiny budget. The television show, unfolding in real-time from about 40 minutes into the film, is a masterpiece of carefully orchestrated chaos.

While Manescu claims that the revolution happened here – in this small town east of Bucharest – and that he was part of it, callers to the show have other memories, most of which involved Manescu face down on a bar by midday. The recriminations are heated, the insults increasingly personal (“How dare you call me a textile engineer on air,” fumes the show’s host and new owner of the station, touchy about his preTV career). Having been banned from experimenting with a hand-held camera, the show’s cameraman stages his own private rebellion, haphazardly framing the shots so that the flimsy desk tilts alarmingly down to the right, where the embattled Manescu crouches like a toad and dreams of vodka. Beautifully observed and very funny, this film is a real treat.

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