12:08 East of Bucharest

Sixteen years have passed since the overthrow of the Romanian dictatorship. In a small town east of Bucharest, a local television station is preparing a program dedicated to the anniversary of the revolution. The host wants to determine whether a revolution actually took place in the town on December 22, 1989. He invites a history teacher and a retiree who moonlights as Santa Claus to the studio, and they attempt to reconstruct their own roles in the events of that pivotal day. It quickly becomes clear that the memory of the revolution is less straightforward than the host would like.

Corneliu Porumboiu’s debut film examines a society that found itself on the other side of political upheaval. Instead of grand history, we witness the everyday life of a small town, and instead of revolutionary heroes – ordinary people trying to make sense of their own past. The film asks what actually changes in an individual’s life when the system changes, and how, years later, one constructs one’s own stance toward those pivotal events.

The clash of memory, ambition, and reality creates a bitter yet unpretentious portrait of a society trying to find its footing in a new reality.