176:, which had been boiling since before the war, continued to pose a threat, and the suspicion and distrust of the communist age affected the entire nation. Monica and her husband Gugu (Igor), who also participated in the robbery, had been communist supporters who were abandoned and abused by the government as soon as it came to power.
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Lusztig was eleven or twelve years old when her mother told her about her grandmother's dark past. Before then, it had remained a well-kept secret. Lusztig did not know her grandmother. She only met her twice. She says her inspiration for constructing a film around an absent female protagonist came
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Lusztig's documentary speculates that government's oppression and antisemitism encouraged their criminal behavior. Having given up on their hopes for a government they believed in, Monica and her husband turned to adventure and pleasure seeking. With the money she stole, before her arrest, Monica
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With a tone of uncertainty
Lusztig tries to sort through the rumors that surround the crime in hopes of discovering what really happened. Were the criminals going to give the money to poor
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bought a pleated gray skirt and an orange angora sweater. Material pleasures offered happiness and certainty that the government had taken from her.
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officials before being buried beneath government files. Lusztig managed to find a copy and incorporates clips into her documentary.
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and the belief that a filmmaker should trust his or her intuition and can make connections between seemingly unconnected images.
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Exploring her dark family secret, Lusztig blends
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that was made by the
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in their community? Were they going to fly away and escape to
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was screened at a number of film festivals including:
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220:Lusztig's editing and filming draws from
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599:Interview with Filmmaker Irene Lusztig
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526:. New England Film. Archived from
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388:"Reconstructing the Romanian Past"
318:International Documentary Festival
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555:"Reconstruction"
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440:Ioanid Gang
336:New England
128:Ioanid Gang
120:documentary
38:Directed by
638:2001 films
632:Categories
494:References
195:Production
118:is a 2001
74:90 minutes
565:13 August
534:13 August
511:13 August
421:13 August
398:13 August
343:Reception
316:Amsterdam
209:'s novel
163:Bucharest
151:Communist
89:Languages
79:Countries
590:Archived
584:reviews
434:See also
364:Berkeley
298:New York
122:made by
105:Romanian
445:Romania
360:Harvard
356:Variety
280:Atlanta
205:writer
157:Summary
147:fiction
93:English
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301:Jewish
287:Serbia
274:Boston
203:German
189:Israel
170:utopia
101:French
97:Hebrew
370:Notes
293:Italy
201:from
623:IMDb
567:2007
536:2007
513:2007
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400:2007
362:and
185:Jews
103:and
58:2001
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Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Additional terms may apply.
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