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It’s 20 December 1989. Ceaușescu’s regime is on its last legs and the revolution is about to explode. A TV director must save the New Year’s Eve broadcast after the lead actress flees the country. Meanwhile, his student son plans to swim across the Danube and take refuge in Yugoslavia. He is being followed by an agent of the secret police, who is also trying to relocate his stubborn mother whose house about to be demolished. One of the movers is a factory worker, panicking because his son wrote to Santa that his dad wants Ceaușescu dead. All of their destinies will collide in a tragicomedy of explosive proportions. The film premiered in Venice, winning several awards, including Best Film in the Horizons program.
Bogdan Mureșanu (1974), is an award-winning Romanian writer and director. He is the author of animated, documentary and feature films and series and a member of the European Film Academy. His short film The Christmas Gift (2019), which served as the basis for his first feature, The New Year That Never Came, won the European Film Award and the Grand Prix in Clermont-Ferrand. It was followed by Sandals (2020), winner of a series of awards at world festivals, including the Young Jury Award in Clermont-Ferrand.