Leading light of the Romanian New Wave Cristian Mungiu (whose 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days, also shown by WFC, won the 2007 Palme d’Or) directs this gripping morality tale starring Romanian stage and screen actor Adrian Titieni as Dr Romeo Aldea and Maria Dragus (the priest’s daughter in The White Ribbon) as his daughter Eliza.

The film explores both complex family dynamics and the compromises and corruption of post-communist society, but Mungiu has emphasised that these features are not unique to societies that have experienced communism, commenting that the film has been received well ‘wherever people feel they don’t progress or advance in society based on their own merit.’ The film also developed from his reflections on experiencing parenthood, and how to prepare children to succeed as adults in a society where people do not respect the rules.

Mungiu has a distinct, uncompromising style which produces intense results from the actors with whom he works: he does not cut within the middle of a scene, entailing choreographed long pieces of action and sometimes as many as 30 takes. Mungiu, of all the Romanian New Wave’s key filmmakers, has the most robustly recognisable aesthetic. He likes his handheld camera to adopt the forcefield of the characters, often from behind, so that we charge forwards with them into all the difficulties they face.

“He’s a master of stray threads which ping back with unexpected force, and sinister insinuation tucked around the edges, offering ambiguous closure on several of the questions thrown up.” Tim Robey, Telegraph