In 1968, Romanian filmmaker Lucian Pintilie completed his second film, Reconstituirea — known in English as Reconstruction or The Reenactment — and, within a month of its 1970 release, it vanished. Not banned outright, but buried: withdrawn, never televised, never revived for nearly two decades. By the time Romanian audiences could see it freely in 1990, it had acquired near-mythological status. A 2008 critics' poll ranked it the greatest Romanian film ever made.<br /><br />The premise is deceptively simple: two young men, Vuică and Ripu, get drunk at their graduation party, brawl with a bartender, and are offered a deal — reenact the fight for an educational film about the dangers of alcohol and walk free. What follows is a sustained, darkly comic, and finally devastating examination of what happens when institutional power turns a camera on the people it controls.<br /><br />Mike talks with Spencer Parsons and Andrei Idu about Pintilie's deliberate subversion and why this film  became the foundation for the entire Romanian New Wave. Guest interview Radu Toderici -- whose essay about the film will be featured as part of the upcoming book ReFocus: The Films of Lucian Pintilie.<br /><br /><br />Become a supporter of this podcast: <a href="https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth--5513239/support?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss">https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth--5513239/support</a>.<br /><br />Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at <a href="http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth </a>