In 1959, in Romania, six former members of the nomenklatura and the secret police organize a hold up of the National Bank. After their arrest, the state forces them to play themselves in a film which reconstitutes the crime and the investigation. At the end of their trial, filmed live, they are sentenced to death and executed. A month later, the film Reconstitution was released and became a sensation throughout the country.

Today, Alexandru Solomon retraces this incredible story.

Author statement

This is a film about a group of communists that lost their faith and expressed their disillusionment through a public performance: a Bank robbery. The crowning of their performance was the shooting of a reconstruction film by the secret police. But from that moment on, the ‘gangsters’ became part of another performance they could no longer control. They became actors of propaganda, as well as the reconstruction film which was used to inflict terror.

Talking about genre, this is a political detective story. Its specialty is that our main piece of evidence is an archive film. A film that is put on trial. Deconstruction versus Reconstruction. Why did they do it? How did six communists loose their ideals to such an extent?

I was asked what does this film say about Romania and communism.

What does it say about Romania, where this story of the bank robbery is still shadowed by doubts and mistery? And where the former politicians and their policemen still have a say? Maybe it says: this is a country that after three dictatorships hasn't come to terms with its past. The same lies and cliches have surfaced again, after 40 years; they help in hiding the ugly things under the carpet. And as we continue to accept these lies, the past corrupts the present and infects the future.

Regia / Réalisateur / Director: Alexandru Solomon

Scenariul / Auteur / Author: Alexandru Solomon

Imaginea / Image / Photography: Constantin Chelba

Sunetul/ Son/ Sound: Dana Bunescu, Viorel Dobre

Montajul/ Montage / Editing: Sophie Reiter

Producatori/ Producteurs/ Producers: Les Films d'Ici/Serge Lalou, Virginie Vallat - Libra Film / Tudor Giurgiu

Cu sprijinul/ Partenaires/ Partners: Eurimages, CNC France, CNC Romania, Discovery Campus, Jan Vrijman Fund

Difuzare TV/ Diffuseurs/ Broadcasters: ZDF/Arte, BBC, France 2

Durata/ Durée/ Length: 75' + 69'

Format: Vidéo - 35mm

Versiuni disponibile/ Versions disponibles/ Available versions: VF, VA, VR

Distribuitor/ Distributeurs/ Distributors: France Télévision Distribution, Libra Film

Anul productiei/ Année/ Year: 2004

Press reviews & PR

Time Out

“The film is a moving, occasionally absurd and often riveting insight into life behind the old iron curtain” Time-Out (London)

Best history show

The only cops-and-robbers films allowed in 1950s in Romania were those screened to show the inevitable collapse of capitalism. However, Virgil Calotescu's Reconstruction was a markedly different proposition: a film that detailed the scandalous national bank robbery of 1959, using the real-life suspects and police to retell the story of the heist. Yet, as this troubling Storyville documentary shows, those executed for the supposed crime were more guilty of being Jews than being criminals, conveniently scapegoated at a time when the party was trying to eradicate high-status Jewish members. (Sunday Times)

IDFA

To see the review from IDFA's official daily, click here.

Chicago Tribune

"The Great Communist Bank Robbery" *** (Romania/France; Alexandru Solomon, 2004). Very interesting documentary—a sort of Soviet-era real-life film noir— about the rare and unprecedented 1959 robbery of the Romanian National Bank and its incredible aftermath. The robbers were caught, revealed as would-be Jewish immigrants to Israel and one-time high-ranking Communist Party members, and then forced to play themselves in a very bad black-and-white docudrama of their crime and show trial. This movie juxtaposes scenes from that '59 film, "The Reconstruction," and contemporary interviews with survivors. It's a scathing look at how politics distorts history. In Romanian, with English subtitles.