Mircea Săucan

A series of four films presented as educational clips about work safety in a chemical factory presents a multi-layered reflection on the ambiguity of life and death, waking and dreaming, seen through oppressive black and white images and episodic narrative. The enigmatic story of a young couple employed in a socialist factory is characterized by the constant repetition and variation of motifs that ironically violate safety rules. „Inhale as much air as possible, to have what to offer.“

Petru and Constantin, former faculty mates, have different views concerning their lives and professions; while the former has a bright imagination, is very creative and daring, the latter is looking only for personal comfort and material satisfaction. They contend for the same woman – but even if she loves Petru, she marries Constantin for his material condition. Though he finds in Constantin an adversary who does not hesitate to remove him, Petru will surpass him professionally.

In the summer of 1962, a soldier on leave and a girl from Moscow enjoy a brief but intense love affair on the shores of the Black Sea. Their love games mesh with the games of children on the beach; their dialogues are a mixture of Romanian and Russian, humorous and lyrical at the same time. But the soldier has to return to duty, and all that's left for the girl is the hope that the two will meet again some day. The movie was banned and never released in theaters in Romania, the premiere was in Israel, 1992.

Arguing with his parents, Petre, a teenager, moves at his bigger brother, Andrei, a successful actor. There he meets Dora, one of his brother's young fans. When Andrei gives the girl his attention, Petre feels abandoned and runs away without even taking the hundred lei bill his brother had given him. A car runs Petre down. When he learns about this tragic accident, Andrei realizes - while watching his own smiling face in a musical on TV - that underneath his glittering success, he lives an empty life.

A poem about the memory of objects in which the things that furnish a house are described.

A more experimental aproach to labor protection films. In the line of Săucan's style, the soundtrack is as important as the image, the threatening music, full of shrillness, composed by Ion Dumitrescu potentiating the visual construction that mixes - in a montage reminiscent of the Soviet avant-garde school of the 1920s - all kinds of shooting techniques and frame combinations.

Two soldiers, Tică and Grigore, return from the front on a two-day leave to their home village. The action begins in the spring of 1945. Grigore is unpleasantly surprised to find his name on the monument to fallen soldiers and his girlfriend Ana married to another man.