"In 2021, the Romanian writer-director bagged the prestigious Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival for Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn, a black comedy about a school teacher whose career is threatened when a hardcore porno she makes with her husband goes viral. Shot largely on the streets of Bucharest during Covid-19 lockdowns, the film documents the eerie, empty aesthetic of urban centers in the era and captures real citizens snarling and cursing at the camera and at the film's lead actress."
"His follow-up, 2023's Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World, nailed a different strain of post-Covid alienation. Its heroine, Angela (Ilinca Manolache), toils away 9 to 5 making shady workplace safety videos for a faceless multinational while moonlighting on TikTok, pretending to be a misogynist influencer (modeled after Romania's own model of toxic masculinity, Andrew Tate)."
A 2021 Golden Bear winner explored a schoolteacher's career collapse after a hardcore porno she made with her husband goes viral, filmed amid empty Bucharest lockdown streets and real citizen confrontations. A 2023 follow-up examined post‑Covid alienation through a heroine who makes workplace safety videos by day and performs a misogynist TikTok persona by night. Both films combine intellectual pontification and vulgar low humor to portray internet‑age derangement. The new Dracula adaptation feeds the Romanian vampire myth into AI, stages pornographic scenes and the exploitation of tech workers, and frames the story around a filmmaker tasked with a blockbuster vampire picture.
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