Much awaited romcom Hello! How Are You?, in cinemas across Romania

The newly released comedy “Hello! How Are You?” (Buna! Ce faci?) is off and running in cinemas across Bucharest this week and in case you are not so sure about your knowledge of Romanian, you may also opt for the version with English subtitles presented at The New Cinema of the Romanian Director (Noul Cinematograf al Regizorului Roman).

The comedy, described as “a breath of fresh air”, in a 2010 review in Variety magazine, tells the story of a couple whose twenty-year marriage has gone stale. Each seeks love elsewhere and, through an ironic twist of fate, ends up chatting to the other and falling in love with their interlocutors, without realizing who it is. While the two adults play out their mid-life crises, their 17-year-old adolescent son deals with his own troubles, caught between his overwhelming emerging sexuality and, eventually, true love. The film had a budget of EUR 800,000, the director told Business Review, and is based on a true story, which appeared in the local press over four years ago. Financial reasons delayed the film’s release.

The bittersweet romcom goes beyond the dark world of the cinematic creations of Puiu, Mungiu, Serban, Muntean and Porumboiu that the audience had become used to seeing from Romania’s direction.

Besides The New Cinema of the Romanian Director (Noul Cinematograf al Regizorului Roman, located on Soseaua Kiseleff 3, at The National Peasant Museum), “Hello! How Are You?” is also being showcased at The Light Cinema, Hollywood Multiplex, Patria, Cinema City Sun Plaza and Cinema City Cotroceni in Bucharest. In Iasi, the film is running at Victoria cinema, in Cluj at Cinema City and Florin Piersic cinema and in Brasov, at Cityplex Brasov. Depending on the number of visitors that the film gets this week, its running time may be extended in cinemas across the country.