Graduation

Graduation

The Guardian

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Cannes Best Director winner Cristian Mungiu returns with a powerful and universal study about the imprecision of parenthood, the relativity of truth and the ambiguity of compromise.
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Synopsis

Palme d’Or winner Cristian Mungiu (4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days, Beyond the Hills) returns with a masterly exploration of moral compromise and bureaucratic corruption, told through a captivating and intricately plotted family drama that grips like a thriller. Romeo (Adrian Titieni), a physician living in a small mountain town in Transylvania, has raised his daughter Eliza (Maria Dragus) with the idea that once she turns 18, she will leave to study abroad in the UK. But on the day before Eliza’s first entrance exam to university, she is assaulted in an attack that could jeopardise her entire future. Now Romeo has a decision to make: there are ways of solving her predicament, but not without betraying the moral principles that he, as a father, has taught Eliza throughout her life. Winner of the Best Director prize at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, Graduation is a stunningly crafted morality play from one of European cinema’s most revered auteurs. Executed with intricate formal precision and Mungiu’s characteristically raw and authentic form of naturalism, Graduation is the mark of a filmmaker at the height of his powers.

Director

Cristian Mungiu
Cristian Mungiu is a Romanian writer-director born in Iași, Romania in 1968. Before studying film, he worked as a teacher and journalist for the press, radio and TV. His debut film West (Occident) premiered in Quinzaine des Réalisateurs at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival and was an audience hit in Romania. His second feature 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days was awarded the Cannes Palme d’Or in 2007. The film later received several awards as best film of the year from various international associations of film critics, and won the Best Film and Best Director trophies at the European Film Academy Awards. He returned to Cannes in 2009 as a writer-producer-co-director with the collective episodic film Tales from the Golden Age, and as a writer-director in 2012 with Beyond the Hills which was double-awarded for Best Screenplay and Best Actresses. He was in the jury of the Cannes Film Festival in 2013. Graduation is his fifth film.

Cast

Adrian Titieni: Romeo Maria Dragus: Eliza Lia Bugnar: Magda Malina Manovici: Sandra Vlad Ivanov: Chief Inspector Gelu Colceag: Exam Committee President Rares Andrici: Marius Petre Ciubotaru: Vice Mayor Bulai Alexandra Davidescu: Romeo's mother Emanuel Parvu: Prosecutor Ivascu

Crew

Cristian Mungiu: Writer / director Tudor Vladimir Panduru: Cinematography Simona Paduretu: Production Design Mircea Olteanu: Sound Design and Editing Constantin Fleancu: Sound Recording and Post-processing Olivier Dô Hùu: Sound Mixing

Details

Original title: Bacalaureat Production year: 2016 Language: Roumanian DVD catalogue number: ART829DVD Blu-ray catalogue number: ART208BD

Awards

Winner of the Best Director award at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival - Cristian Mungiu
Official selection, 2016 Cannes Film Festival
Nominated for Best European Director at the 2016 European Film Awards
Nominated for Best European Screenwriter at the 2016 European Film Awards - Cristian Mungiu

Downloads

Graduation-production-notes.pdf

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Cristian-Mungiu-01.jpg

Now out on DVD, Blu-ray & on demand

Also showing in cinemas

GENRE: Drama

CERTIFICATE: 15

DIRECTOR: Cristian Mungiu

CAST:
Adrian Titieni: Romeo
Maria Dragus: Eliza
Lia Bugnar: Magda
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CREW:
Cristian Mungiu: Writer / director
Tudor Vladimir Panduru: Cinematography
Simona Paduretu: Production Design
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DURATION: 128 Mins

COUNTRIES: France, Belgium, Romania

LANGUAGES: Romanian

AWARDS:
Winner of the Best Director award at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival - Cristian Mungiu
VIEW ALL

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Reviews

“A vision of contemporary Romania’s grass-roots corruption”

Tim Robey, The Telegraph
“A masterly, complex movie of psychological subtlety and moral weight... an intricate, deeply intelligent film”

Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
“Impeccably played”

David Parkinson, Empire
“Superb... gripping and meticulous”

David Jenkins, Little White Lies
“Adrian Titieni is outstanding as the flawed hero”

Tara Brady, The Irish Times
“Powerful”

Dave Calhoun, Time Out