A fost sau n-a fost? (Romania 2006)
Directed by Corneliu Poromboiu
 This film, winner of both Best Picture and Public Vote awards at the 2006 Transilvania Film Festival, looks back with frankness and humour at the toppling of the Ceausescu regime in December1989. The Romanian title means more or less 'Was it or wasn't it?'. Something happened in the main square of a small town near Bucharest on 22 December 1989 - but was it a revolution? This is the question posed by local TV owner and phone-in presenter Jderescu. The question comes down to whether people were on the streets before or after 12.08, the time when Ceausescu took to a helicopter, indicating the game was up - were the townsfolk revolting or merely joining in after the event?

After a wry introduction to small town life and its characters, more than half of the film is taken up with the phone-in. Talking heads do not always work for so long, but they certainly do here, thanks in no small part to a crackling dialogue and three sublime comic performances by the unlikely trio of TV pundits - an increasingly exasperated Jderescu, an irascible school teacher who was there and wants to believe he was a revolutionary, and a last minute randomly chosen pragmatic old chap, known by everyone for playing Father Christmas at children's parties. He was doing it in 1989 and he's still doing it now, and he is the least concerned of them all with the past.

Though obviously and importantly about a certain key moment in history, it will do well internationally because it's also about the fallibility of memory and how we reconstruct our own versions of the past. It's beautifully done, absurdist but warm humour with exquisite timing, and three great comic performances. And an unexpectedly moving poetic ending makes it more than "just" a comedy.

Seen at Transilvania Film Festival , 11 June, 2006, Cluj, Romania