Comrade: the making, glory and unmaking of a dictator
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Reviews of documentary film The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceaușescu, and a new history of Romania, Children of the Night.
Anyone remotely familiar with recent Romanian history will learn little from Andrei Ujica’s 2011 epic The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceaușescu, which since November 1 has been available on streaming platform Netflix. (In some regions, at least. If you get the all-too-common ‘not available in your country’ message on Netflix, the full film is here, albeit in poor resolution).
The premise of the film was to make a thorough biography of Nicolae Ceaușescu’s period as Romanian leader using only official footage. Hence autobiography.
Yet with the exception of the fact that Ceaușescu could do wit if he wanted to, we learnt nothing new over the course of the three hours the film lasts. Even casual observers of Romania are likely to have seen much of the footage featured, and will be aware of the events being documented.
Indeed, this is just as well, for you will actually need to know your Romanian history from 1965-89 to make head
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The Autobiography of Nicolae Caesescu
Winter 2025
Andrei Ujica
The Autobiography of Nicolae Caesescu
Andrei Ujica
Written and directed by Andrei Ujica
Editing and sound design: Dana Bunescu
Archival research: Titus Muntean
Visual consultant: Vivi Dragan Vasile RSC
Colorist: Roberta Raduca
Producer: Velvet Moraru
“Who knew that three hours of coarsely edited Romanian state propaganda culled from the ruinous Ceaucescu era between 1965 and 1989 could be so transfixing, illuminating and haunting? Andrei Ujicâ’s extraordinary film eschews context and narration in a wry attempt to fashion a historical chronicle in the same dubiously subjective spirit that the footage was initially conceived.”
“As sometimes happens, some of the finest movies in the festival are being presented outside the main event, including “The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu.” Andrei Ujica opens this found-footage documentary with smeary color images of that former Romanian dictator shortly after his arrest in 1989 and then cuts to stark, silent, gripping black-and-white images, shot from on
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Full Frame Documentary Film Festival
President of Romania from 1974 until 1989, Nicolae Ceausescu was a master of self-promotion, creating an erratic cult of personality around his rule. This three-hour epic is a breathtaking montage of state footage designed to glorify the megalomaniacal dictator—pageants, mass rallies, “candid” home movies. Hard to fathom now that we all know the horrors of his reign—the corruption, the grinding poverty, the genocide—but his image making worked. Queen Elizabeth knighted him, President Nixon paid him a visit, and Charles de Gaulle, Mao-Tse-tung, and Kim Jong Il all kept him company. Then it all came tumbling down; Romanian revolutionaries overthrew his government and he and his wife were executed before a firing squad. As edited here, with no explanatory narration, the footage has a fascinating cumulative effect: at first succeeding in its calculation to impress, it gradually exposes itself as the charade it is. An innovative, brilliant use of archival material, this film turns state propaganda on its head, deconstructing a public portrait whi
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