Corina Stavilă

Based on true events, The Ladder follows the spiritual journey of Andrei, a sensitive, socially awkward young man who turns to acting in his search for true happiness. After the fall of communism, he is blinded by the illusion of freedom and democracy and faces a series of brutal events that have deeply marked Romania's recent history. Finding comfort in playing the part of Aliosa in a stage adaptation of The Karamazov Brothers, he becomes closer and closer to his character, gradually discovering the way to understanding divinity.

During a night shift, an emergency ambulance with a team of three, a doctor, a paramedic and a driver, is called to an old man's apartment. The event will change their lives forever.

Matthew is a 23 years old young man who likes to spend his time doing nothing else than sleeping. He has no purpose in life, being a complete ignorant to everything around him. He lives with his mother, who tries her best to persuade him to get a job and make something of his life. After one fight, he finally decides to take the interview at the military unit his mother has arranged for him.

Velicanu considers himself a fulfilled person. He's got money, a new villa, married a younger woman and has a son from a previous marriage. Before the holidays he has to leave everything in order, but things start to get complicated. The crisis at the end of the day make him wonder whatever he is indeed a happy, fulfilled person...

Love and wedding business in the time of transition.

When the Soviet Army marched into Romania in 1944, a part of the Romanian population went “into the mountains” – a diverse assortment of nationalists and fascists, liberals, apolitical farmers and members of the middle-class, who were affected by the Communists’ expropriations. Over a thousand armed resistance groups took refuge in the inaccessible forests of the Carpathian Mountains where they waited in vain for the support of the Western Allies. One of them was led by Ion Gavrilă-Ogoranu, who managed to remain undetected until 1976 when he was arrested. This film depicts the daily existence of this group. It tells the story of a struggle that became an end in itself, as the enemy was constantly in pursuit and arrest meant torture and often liquidation. Hungry and emotionally withdrawn, the group of young men got entangled in a partisan war that could not be won, lost in the landscape of the South Carpathians, accompanied by a vigilant secret police, the Securitate.

The 17-year-old Amalia, the daughter of a widower lumberjack with many children, falls in love with a soldier. An irresponsible young man, the soldier refuses to admit that he is the father of the child to be born, as Amalia was just a fling in his eyes. Amalia decides to raise the kid all by herself, but she soon changes her mind…