It was a great honour for Romanian Christian Mungiu as he carted home the highest prize, Palme d'Or at the recently concluded Cannes International Film Festival with his film; 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days.

The film which tells an agonising story of a young woman involved in an illegal abortion brought forth the ordeals in the dying days of Communist government in Romania. The 113 minutes feature film was a revelation of how people's lives are affected by ideologies, and sectarian tendencies. Otilia and Gabita are students; they share a room in a hall of residence in Bucharest. Gabita got pregnant. A meeting was arranged in a cheap hotel in town with one Mr. Bebe, who refused their money but instead demanded to be paid in kind for the illegal abortion. Bebe's excuse was that if they were caught, he and Gabita will go to jail while he would get the longest jail term.

The high-calibre Cannes Jury must have been persuaded by Mungiu's coherent story lines, the colourful picture and artistic production handled by the director who was also the script writer.
Mungiu beat 21 other directors to the coveted prize, described the award as "better than Oscars". Wining Palme d'Or to him was like a "fairy tale". While paying tributes to young filmmakers from Romania the 39 years old director remarked that "we are perceived as a generation making the difference."
Considering the low budget of his winning entry put at about 500, 000 Euros, Mungiu said, winning the best prize underlines the fact that a filmmaker does not need big budgets and big stars to win the Palme d'Or.
To his credit, the man of the moment on the world stage of filmmaking, has six feature films 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2007), Lost and Found (2005/I), Occident (2002), Corul pompierilor (2000), Nici o întâmplare (2000) and Zapping (2000). Mungiu also produced Bucuresti-Berlin (2005) and Offset (2006).

By Tunde Oladunjoye