Institute Film Series: Graduation

Romanian director Cristian Mungiu crafted a complex story of corruption and loyalty with his award-winning Graduation (original title: Bacalaureat). The film follows the brilliant daughter of a successful physician as she prepares for college. She has won a scholarship to Cambridge University, on the condition that she receives top grades in her final exams. A dramatic incident the day before the latter destabilizes her and jeopardizes her chances. Her distressed father is offered by a police official a deal to fix the exams’ results. The film subtly explores the meanderings of corruption in the former Socialist country. In The Guardian, Peter Bradshaw writes, “Graduation is an intricate, deeply intelligent film, and a bleak picture of a state of national depression in Romania, where the 90s generation hoped they would have a chance to start again.” The film won the 2016 Cannes Film Festival award for Best Director, and the 2016 Chicago International Film Festival award for Best Actor went to Adrian Titieni.

This film runs 2 hours and 8 minutes.

A post-screening discussion will be led by Virág Molnár, Associate Professor of Sociology at The New School, and Naor Ben-Yehoyada, Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Columbia University, both current Members in the School of Social Science.

This is the third film in the series Economy and Society, curated by the School of Social Science.