Cristian Mungiu | 2002 | Romania | 95' | EN subs

With the European elections approaching and the debate about the legitimacy and future of the Union looming, we turn our gaze towards Eastern Europe. Occident tells a story of love between Luci and Sorina, two normal young people with precarious job and living situations, whose romance is affected by the mobility of the present time and the hope put in the West. When Occident was premiered in 2002, Romania was in the process of joining the EU. And the film portrays this moment with, for example, the visit of a Belgian commissioner to see children in a school singing the only English song they know, and who later gives a lecture to the local authorities about the importance of not being racist. This is one of the many details that give the main narrative its complexity.

Cristian Mungiu is one of the most acclaimed Romanian directors. While maintaining a humorous tone, he succeeds splendidly in this film to capture the dilemmas and insecurities of many Eastern Europeans who find themselves between an incomprehensible past and the rootless future of cosmopolitanism.