”I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians”

Product Description

‘I do not care if we go down in history as barbarians.’ These words, spoken by Romania’s military dictator Marshal Ion Antonescu in the Council of Ministers in the summer of 1941, started the ethnic cleansing on the Eastern Front. One of contemporary Europe’s most distinctive creators has come out with an ingeniously conceived film. While it unfolds slowly and in detail, it hits the viewer with a singular emotional punch. Radu Jude’s sixth feature comes on the heels of a pair of critical favorites AFERIM!, featured on New York Times critic A.O. Scott’s Best of 2016 list; and SCARRED HEARTS, which made The New Yorker critic Richard Brody’s Best of 2018 list. Jude, whose earlier fiction feature films (THE HAPPIEST GIRL IN THE WORLD and EVERYBODY IN OUR FAMILY) received accolades at numerous festivals in Europe and the US, is also known for a string of prize-winning short films, including THE TUBE WITH A HAT (2006), which took the top prize at Sundance and 15 other awards at festivals around the world.

Review

A provocative, sarcastic, and momentous act of interrogation between the past and the present…a fiercely intelligent, engaging and challenging wake-up call, a film that leaves you smarter at the end than when you went in… –Jessica Kiang, Variety

Darkly comic, politically timely…a mature, ambitious work from a spirited auteur who has mastered the cinematic rules well enough to break them with confidence. –Stephen Dalton, The Hollywood Reporter

Explosively eloquent and morally galvanizing…Jude, a gifted practitioner of the new Romanian cinema that has flourished for more than a decade, here sets aside the lustrous black-and-white cinematography and 19th century mise-en-scène of his 2016 breakthrough picture, ‘Aferim!’ In that movie, he confronted another form of bigotry, using the conventions of the classic western to illuminate his nation’s long history of anti-Roma violence, then and now. His target and techniques in ‘Barbarians’ may be different – the images are plain and unvarnished, and the stuff of lived history is relegated to old photographs and archival footage – but his desire to shake the audience out of its moral complacency remains…At 140 minutes, ”I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians” is long and talky in the best sense, a movie predicated on the power of a well-made argument. The intelligence and sustained intensity of the dialogue scenes, most of them shot in lengthy, unbroken takes (by the cinematographer Marius Panduru), induce a mood of heightened concentration. The movie’s refusal to dumb down its ideas, truncate its arguments or skimp on the power of its own verbiage is precisely what makes it so mesmerizing…The genius of ”I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians” is that, without sacrificing an iota of its piercing specificity, it speaks to the forces of nativism and barbarism that are dispiritingly common to every country and culture. We really should know better by now. In watching this movie, perhaps we do. –Justin Chang, The Los Angeles Times

About the Actor

Ioana Iacob studied acting (German-speaking), and is currently working at the German Theatre in Timisoara. She has a great deal of experience on the theatre stage, collaborating with acclaimed directors such as Alexandru Dabija, Victor Ioan Frunza, Yuri Kordonsky, Radu Nica, Florin Fieroiu, Volker Schmidt, Silviu Purcarete, Laszló Bocsárdi and Tompa Gábor. Mariana’s part in Radu Jude’s ”I Do Not Care If We Go Down In History As Barbarians” is her first leading role in film.

About the Director

Radu Jude graduated from the filmmaking Department of Media University in 2003. He worked as an assistant director. He directed the short films ‘The Tube with a Hat’ (2006) (winner of more than 50 international prizes in Sundance, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Uppsala, etc.), Alexandra (2007) (selected in Clermont-Ferrand, awarded in Oberhausen) and more than 150 commercials. H