The story of Mugur Calinescu, a Romanian teenager who wrote graffiti messages of protest against the regime of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and was subsequently apprehended, interrogated, and ultimately crushed by the secret police.

Radu Jude is the prolific director of works that dabble in documentary, fiction, or an intrepid hybrid of the two. The latter is the case here: state surveillance in Ceausescu’s Romania is explored through the staging of a play based on real-life events alongside archive propaganda TV footage.