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Robert Popa’s low-budget, independent comedy may well prove to be Romania’s next domestic hit. Recent years have shown an unexpected trend in Romania: a string of independent comedies (the most recent being Miami Bici – see the news) that quickly became record breakers at the domestic box office. The next hit may very well be The Dac Side of the Moon (where “dac” is the Romanian word for “Dacian”), a parody helmed by first-time director Robert Popa that will start production in June. The project is being staged by Papa Pictures, with Alin Panc, Alexandru Pop and Cosmin Seleşi serving as producers, and co-produced by Compass Studio (Dorian Stan) and Erka (Ruxandra Şerban). The screenplay, written by George Lungoci and Popa, goes almost two millennia back in time, when the Dacians are under threat from the Romans, but pretty much any relationship the story may have with historical accuracy stops.

Jesús del Cerro’s movie helped total admissions for domestic films to drop by only 23%, and not by 94%, in 2020. As only 12 domestic films were released in Romanian cinemas in 2020, with some features favouring alternative releases and others – for example, Cristi Puiu’s Berlinale-awarded Malmkrog – waiting for clearer exhibition skies, one would have expected a very dramatic plunge in terms of earnings and admissions for domestic features in 2020. Admissions did indeed decrease by 23%, down from 785,957 in 2019, but it could have been much, much worse: remove only one title from the list of releases, and this drop would have been as steep as 94%. The saviour of the Romanian domestic box office in 2020 was Jesús del Cerro’s Miami Bici, a low-brow independent comedy released by Vertical Entertainment on 21 February, only weeks before all of the cinemas were closed (18 March) because...

Netflix has announced the television shows and movies that will be leaving their streaming service in April 2020.

Some of the biggest titles departing include 90’s mega-hits like The Shawshank Redemption and Goodfellas, popular comedies such as Step Brothers and The Hangover, and Nicolas Cage’s adventure flick National Treasure. Perhaps most unfortunate for many families will be the loss of the Looney Toons and basketball mashup Space Jam, which has recently been one of Netflix’s most watched films.

With so many people being forced inside during the Covid-19 coronavirus outbreak, it’s a shame any titles have to leave the service at all. But it should be noted that many of these could return in the future since Netflix has a tendency to add and remove the same movies and shows as licensing rights get purchased, expired, and renewed. So, maybe you won’t have to wait too long...