The Grand Illusion

In his latest bold satire, Romanian auteur Radu Jude takes up the spiritual crisis of educated urbanites—notching down (slightly) the absurdity, while complicating his interrogation of globalized modern life.

Orsolya (Eszter Tompa) is a bailiff in Cluj, the main city in Transylvania. One day she has to evict an indigent man (Gabriel Spahiu) from a cellar, an action with tragic consequences that triggers a moral crisis which Orsolya must weather as best she can.

Winner of the Silver Bear for Best Screenplay at the 75th Berlinale. In Romanian, Hungarian, and German with English subtitles.

Stick around after the feature for a pre-recorded conversation between Radu Jude and Richard Linklater.

“A sharp, unforgiving satire about life, death, and the politics of learned hopelessness, among other weighty subjects… It’s a sneak attack of a movie, one that invites your laughter, even as it jabs you in the ribs.” Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

“Radu Jude continues to find gold as he rummages through the trash of the modern condition.” Nicolas Rapold, Sight & Sound

“Once again, Romanian film-maker Radu Jude has given us a garrulous, querulous movie of ideas… It is satirical, polemical, infuriated at the greedy and reactionary mediocrities in charge in his native land and wobbling on an unstable cusp between hope and despair.” Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian