Bacalaureat (2016)

Grey-haired doctor Romeo Aldea (Adrian Titieni) has his regular life disrupted by violent incidents. First a rock is thrown through his apartment window. Then his daughter Eliza (Maria-Victoria Drăgus), who is due to take her final school exams, is assaulted and her writing arm is sprained. After her first paper goes badly, Romeo must consider making the kind of phone calls that contradict the belief in honesty he and his wife Magda (Lia Bugnar) passed on to Eliza. Amping up the intrigue are Romeo’s lover, Sandra (Mălina Manovici) – a schoolteacher and single mum; a convict on the loose; Eliza’s motorbike-riding boyfriend; a local mayor who owes Romeo a favour; and a pragmatic policeman friend. Director Cristian Mungiu deservedly shared the Best Director prize at Cannes in 2016 for this elegant-but-gritty slice of Romanian middle-class life.