(Undeva la Palilula)
The 60’s, Romania. Serafim, a young doctor, is sent to the Hospital in Palilula, a small town lost somewhere on the country map, after the death of the previous pediatrician, Mr. Pantelică. Palilula, an authentic “Macondo” from the region of Oltenia, it’s a place where the insignificant coexists with charming things; in the hospital, the patients are perfectly healthy, and one of their favorite entertainments is to assist at the dissections in the morgue. The rest of the population is charming and imbecile at the same time, forever isolated in drunkenness, feasting, and orgy. The changes from the political regimes, the deaths, the fires and floods, none of these major terrible changes of the world disturb the inhabitants of Palilula. Restless and lazy, happy and melancholy, they are always there, together, in the center of the world, on the terrace with oleanders, at the hospital and at the Boema Hotel. The demonstrations dedicated to the “fight for peace”, imposed all over Romania by the new leader of the party, take place in Palilula in the same spirit of negligence and drunkenness specific for this town; the most important are the typical jokes which can’t be controlled by any political regime. Serafim gradually adapts to the life in this world and ends up belonging to it, even without wanting. By the end, Palilula disintegrates, characters disappear, die, each and every one of them ends, in his specific way, his fabulous existence. The reality doesn’t even matter as long as it’s told. Furthermore, the reality doesn’t even exist unless it’s told…
Gopo Award and Romanian Filmmakers Award for Best Cinematography in 2013
Silviu Purcărete
Tudor Giurgiu
Libra Film