Directed by Bogdan Muresanu

Fiction, Romania and Spain, 23’14’’ (2018)

Synopsis

On 20^th of December, 1989, a few days after Ceausescu’s bloody repression in Timisoara, a father’s quiet evening turns to sheer ordeal as he finds out that his little son has mailed a wish letter to Santa. As the kid understood, his father’s desire was to see Ceausescu dead.

• Director: Bogdan Muresanu
• Producers: Vlad Iorga and Victor Dumitrovici
• IMDB

NOMINATED FOR THE EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS

Director’s Statement

On the 20th of December, 1989, a few days after Ceausescu’s bloody repression in Timisoara, a father’s quiet evening turns to sheer ordeal as he finds out that his little son has mailed a wish letter to Father Frost (the Communist Santa).

Gelu, a 35 years old electrician, comes home carrying a fir tree when he first meets his son, Marius, then a neighbour. The grown-ups start talking in whispers about what has happened in Timisoara. The neighbour, Uncle Chican, is giving an orange to the little one so that he could have something under the fir tree.

Father and son climb the stairs up to their flat on the third floor where they are welcome in by Mariana. As the kid plays around in the house, the same fearful atmosphere is increased by Ceausescu’s speech on tv. Mariana turns it off and soon father and son are seated at the table waiting to be served with the dinner dish. The quiet ritual seems to take over the house again but not for long.

Gelu is asking Marius if he was a good boy on his last day at school and, if so, what is it that he wrote to Santa. Marius answers back he was a very good boy and that he wrote to Santa all family’s wishes. But he mailed the letter so he can’t show it to Gelu. Father insists in finding out what was inside the letter but only after he admonishes Marius for leaving the premises of their house.

When, to his unpleasant surprise, Gelu finds out that Marius wrote in that letter that his father’s most dear wish is toe see Ceausescu dead (Uncle Nick as he was commonly named at corners), all hell is unleashed. The two parents will quarell at length whose fault is it: the kid’s or theirs and what is to be done. They will spend the night trying to figure out how they will get out of such a dire situation which seems hopeless. Mariana will come up with a solution and Gelu will apply it though later on, in the night, he will keep his doubts that he really managed to destroy the letter. Little does he know in those moments of utter despair that on the next day, the Romanian Revolution will outburst and in a few days, more precisely on the Christmas day, Ceausescu, Uncle Nick, will be executed.