The small city of Sibiu in Transylvania, in the chaos of the Romanian revolution, December 1989 and early 1990. The military school and army headquarters are across the street from the police and Securitate, the secret police of Ceaușescu’s regime. Shots are fired (though not claimed) in the square nearby. Protesters storm the police building. Some militia and secret police officers, a few revolutionaries and civilians caught up in the pandemonium seek refuge with the army but get detained at gunpoint for a month in a military swimming pool as suspected terrorists, hungry, wounded, amid fear, mistrust, revenge, hatred, profiteering, paranoia, traces of common sense and even fledgling compassion.

The direction, screenplay, acting and camera work, the editing and the production, the sets, costumes and hair styles – all deserve the numerous awards received. Based on real events at the fief of Ceaușescu’s youngest son, after the dictator’s mock trial and execution, the movie does not judge, nor defend, but questions human reactions, group dynamics, rewriting the past, memory and history, the effects of such trauma and the process of lustration, anytime and around the world.