''I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians'' ( ro, Îmi este indiferent dacă în istorie vom intra ca barbari) is a 2018 internationally co-produced

black comedy Black comedy, also known as dark comedy, morbid humor, or gallows humor, is a style of comedy that makes light of subject matter that is generally considered taboo, particularly subjects that are normally considered serious or painful to discu ...

film directed by

Radu Jude Radu Jude (; born 28 March 1977) is a Romanian film director and screenwriter. Biography In 2003, Jude graduated from the Film Directing Department of the Media University of Bucharest. He worked as an assistant director for feature films inclu ...

2017 Muzeul National de Arta al Romaniei (Palatul Regal) 4

Plot

The film examines the

1941 Odessa massacre The Odessa massacre was the mass murder of the Jewish population of Odessa and surrounding towns in the Transnistria Governorate during the autumn of 1941 and the winter of 1942 while it was under Romanian control. It was one of the worst mass ...

by the Romanians on the Eastern Front in 1941. The title is pulled from a speech by Romanian Minister of Foreign Affairs

Mihai Antonescu Mihai Antonescu (18 November 1904 – 1 June 1946) was a Romanian politician who served as Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister during World War II, executed in 1946 as a war criminal. Early career Born in Nucet, Dâmbovița County, w ...

to the Council of Ministers preceding the massacre of around 34,000

Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

Roma people The Romani (also spelled Romany or Rromani , ), colloquially known as the Roma, are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group, traditionally nomadic itinerants. They live in Europe and Anatolia, and have diaspora populations located worldwide, with sign ...

, and

Ukrainians Ukrainians ( uk, Українці, Ukraintsi, ) are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine. They are the seventh-largest nation in Europe. The native language of the Ukrainians is Ukrainian. The majority of Ukrainians are Eastern Ort ...

. Most of the film is about the research and preparation for a public re-enactment of an antisemitic massacre, and the roadblocks faced by Mariana (Ioana Iacob), a director fighting against local government and her hired re-enactors. Throughout the film there are discussions of war crimes committed by Romania during the Second World War and the country's involvement in

the Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

. It also deals heavily with popular depictions of fascist leader Ion Antonescu, antisemitism, and fascism apologia in Romania after the fall of communism.

Cast

* Ioana Iacob as Mariana * Alex Bogdan as Traian *

Alexandru Dabija Alexandru Dabija (born February 13, 1955) is a stage director and actor in Romanian theater and film. Born in Piatra Neamț, he graduated from the I.L. Caragiale Institute of Theatre and Film Arts in Bucharest. Dabija debuted in 1976 with Phili ...

as Movila

Production

In the film, a stylized reenactment of the Romanian campaign on Odessa is played on the forecourt (now a parking lot) in front of the

Royal Palace of Bucharest The Royal Palace () of Bucharest, known as Palace of the Republic ( ro, Palatul Republicii, links=no, label=) between 1948 and 1990, is a monumental building situated in the capital of Romania, on Calea Victoriei. The palace in its various inc ...

Accolades

The film was selected as the Romanian entry for the

Best Foreign Language Film This is a list of categories of awards commonly awarded through organizations that bestow film awards, including those presented by various film, festivals, and people's awards. Best Actor/Best Actress *See Best Actor#Film awards, Best Actress#F ...

at the

91st Academy Awards The 91st Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored the best films of 2018 and took place on February 24, 2019, at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles. During the ceremony, ...

, but it was not nominated. It won the Crystal Globe for the best feature film at the 2018 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.

References

External links