Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn

Berlin Golden Bear winner, Radu Jude’s scathing satire finds schoolteacher Emi threatened with dismissal when a private sex tape goes viral.

Produced under conditions of lockdown, Jude’s uncompromising satire is a relentless attack on prejudice and hypocrisy. Divided into three parts, Jude describes it as a ‘sketch for a popular film’. The first follows Emi as she walks through the COVID-emptied streets of Bucharest. The second – a dictionary of ‘anecdotes, signs, and wonders’ – embraces the construction of Ceausescu’s palace, Church support for dictatorships and other excesses. In the third, Emi faces a parents’ tribunal that becomes an exercise in misogyny and racism, with extensive recourse to the internet. Hardcore images disturb, but are also demystified by their context. Coming from the director of Aferim! and Scarred Hearts, it’s a striking antidote to complacency.

Winner of the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival in 2021 and Romania’s entry for Best International Feature at the 2022 Academy Awards.