Valentin Popescu Movies

In a small village in Transylvania, women are knitting new opportunities for themselves in this documentary from filmmaker Ileana Stanculescu. Deutschweisskirch is a town that for the most part has been passed over in the economic progress of the European Union, and for a long time jobs for women were hard to come by. However, a German musician with an entrepreneurial bent has helped to change this by discovering a market for hand-knitted wool socks, and in turn finding in the village a large number of women eager to earn some extra money through their handiwork. Village of Socks observes what has become a daily ritual as dozens of women meet in the town square, compare notes on their lives, and work on their knitting with an eye towards selling their work. Village of Socks was screened as part of the 2007 Hot Docs International Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

A Romanian schoolgirl finds her life forever changed when she accidentally knocks over a bust of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu in director Catalin Mitulescu's tragic-comic coming-of-age tale. The year is 1989, and the suffocating grip of despot Ceausescu is slowly loosening as the result of rising civil unrest. After pretty Eva (Dorothea Petrie) and her rebellious boyfriend Alex (Ionut Becheru) inadvertently send a statue of Ceausescu tumbling to the ground, she is exiled to a bleak reformatory institution while he is let off with a stern warning due to his father's strong Communist party ties. It is at her new school that Eva makes the acquaintance of the disarmingly disobedient Andrei (Cristian Vararu), a boy whose dissident parents are nowhere to be found. As Andrei and Eva hatch a daring plan to swim to freedom across the Danube, Eva's deeply embittered seven-year-old brother Lalalilu (Timotei Duma) conspires with his two best friends (Marius Stan and Marian Stoica) to assassinate the notoriously brutal Ceausescu during a national celebration in which the three youngsters are set to sing in a children's choir. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Another in a long line of "revisionist" Sherlock Holmes dramas, the made-for-cable Case of Evil offers a 28-year-old Holmes (James D'Arcy) who, in contrast with his later and more familiar persona, brashly brags about his deductive skills, egotistically basks in his fame and popularity, and drinks like a fish. But young Sherlock is in for a sobering and humiliating return to earth when he first crosses the path of Professor Moriarty (Vincent D'Onofrio), the "Napoleon of Crime." The brilliant but inexperienced Holmes not only fails to connect Moriarty with the murders of London's most notorious opium dealers, but even ends up falling into the clutches of the master criminal, who introduces the hapless detective to a relatively new and exotic drug known as heroin. Helping Sherlock put himself back together after his horrendous experience are his friend Dr. Watson (Roger Morlidge), his brother Mycroft (Richard E. Grant), and a comely young lady (Gabrielle Anwar) -- whose last name happens to be Doyle. The story is climaxed by a thrilling sword duel inside Big Ben (and never mind that the famous clock tower hadn't yet been built). Filmed in Romania, Case of Evil made its USA Network debut on October 25, 2002. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This spritely Romanian drama centers around the life of a 17-year-old boy living in a culturally mixed town beside the Danube in the latter 19th century. The town is called Braila; it is filled with an interesting mixture of Greeks, Turks, and Romanians; they have lived together for years. Young Dragomir, the film's protagonist, is a vain fellow who for years has observed his free-spirited mother and sister as they played in large orgies. His father and older brother were never there to witness the shenanigans. When the father did return, he would often beat his wife and daughter. After one such beating, his mother lost an eye. For revenge, Drogomire and his sister Kyra hire a hitman to kill their father and older brother. Only the brother gets murdered. Fearing for their lives, the little family leaves town. They are soon separated. Kyra is sold into prostitution and Dragomir finds himself drawn to Codin, a dashing, charismatic fellow who is also a serial killer. The two young men get involved although it is not clear whether they were sexually linked. They consider themselves "blood brothers." ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

In this Romanian-set fantasy, a man becomes invisible in order to fight an evil, masked madman called Drago. Drago turns mobs of peasants insane and sends them to surrounding villages to kidnap young women. Behind all the mayhem is a wheelchair-bound mad scientist who controls a robot called Mandroid. ~ Brian Gusse, All Movie Guide

Students at Rumanian technical colleges round off their education with actual work in factories, based on what they have been studying. In this film, one such student meets a girl who flunked her college entrance exams. Their relationship motivates each of them to higher achievements. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide