Closer to the Moon

Post-war Communist Romania: In 1959 Bucharest, members of Romania's high society Max Rosenthal (Mark Strong), Alice Bercovich (Vera Farmiga), Dumi Dorneanu (Tim Plester), Răzvan Orodel (Joe Armstrong) and Iorgu Ristea (Christian McKay), known collectively as Ioanid Gang, announce to a crowd that they are shooting a film. A young café worker, Virgil (Harry Lloyd), is among the witnesses. Under the guise of making this film, the Ioanid Gang perform a heist of the National Bank of Romania. The following day, Virgil loiters around a film set and encounters the director, Flaviu (Allan Corduner), who requests him to buy vodka and give it to him whenever he asks.

Eight months before the heist took place, Max, Dumi, Iorgu and Răzvan, heroes of the resistance during World War II, celebrate New Year's Eve and the start of 1959. Max is divorcing his wife, Sonia (Monica Bîrlădeanu). Alice returns from Moscow with her and Max's son, Mirel (Marcin Walewski), in tow. She re-introduces Mirel to his father, and they begin to bond.

One night, the Gang celebrates Dumi's birthday and reminisce about their early lives as revolutionaries. For fun, they plot the heist in order to rile up anti-Communist Romania, but then realize that Max is taking their conversation seriously. He convinces Dumi, Iorgu and Răzvan to join him, but Alice says no as she has to raise Mirel. She changes her mind, however, when she learns that Mirel wants to join as the fifth person. Alice becomes enraged during the robbery when she sees Mirel filming it. After a couple of months, Iorgu unintentionally implicates himself, and the group is individually located and arrested by Comrade Holban (Anton Lesser) and his police officers. Their arrests happen on the same day as the Luna 2 landing on the Moon.

One year later, Virgil is an experienced camera assistant. He is called in by his boss, who informs him of a short film about to start production. Virgil is assigned to record it. It is then revealed that the film is a propaganda piece about the Ioanid Gang's crime. The group, who have been convicted and are awaiting their execution, are ordered by the Securitate to star in the film. Later, Virgil informs Flaviu that he was present during the robbery and its danger has been greatly exaggerated by the authorities. When the Gang arrive for filming, Alice begins to bond with Virgil. When Flaviu gets drunk and passes out, Max takes over directing. While setting up a shot, he secretly gives Virgil contact details for the Gang's loved ones, requesting he contact them to let them know the group is alive and in prison. Later, Virgil makes an anonymous call to the first person on the list, and continues to do so with the help of his landlord Moritz (David de Keyser).

One night, Virgil is taken to Holban's house. Holban reveals that he knows Virgil has been doing favours for the Gang, and asks him to keep doing so in order to win their trust. He asks Virgil to find the sixth member of the group, Alice's son, as the Gang will be executed soon. During a commotion on set one day, Alice slips away. Virgil follows her to a house, where she says goodbye to her son. Afterwards, they have dinner at Virgil's house and sleep together. The next morning, Alice surrenders to the guards keeping surveillance outside, and leaves Virgil with sealed instructions. Virgil is approached by Holban and asked to write the address of Mirel, but he feigns unawareness.

Max's ex-brother-in-law (Darrell D'Silva) arrives and relieves Holban of duty due to negligence and exhaustion. Max asks him to send the Gang into space instead of executing them, but he angrily retorts that astronauts should be heroes and not traitors. Alice's letter asks Virgil to organize Mirel's Bar Mitzvah, which he does. Iorgu, Dumi, Răzvan and Max are sent before the firing squad. In voiceover, Alice says that, at the last moment, her sentence was changed to life imprisonment because she had fallen pregnant. The audience is then told that Alice emigrated to Israel with Mirel and her daughter.

The film was written and directed by Nae Caranfil, and produced by Michael Fitzgerald, Denis Friedman, Renata Rainieri, Alessandro Leone and Bobby Paunescu through the production company Mandragora Movies. In August 2011, it was announced that Vera Farmiga and Mark Strong had been cast in leading roles as Alice Bercovich and Max Rosenthal, respectively.[7] Later that month, it was reported that Harry Lloyd had joined the cast in the role of Virgil.[8] The rest of the cast consisted of Anton Lesser, Joe Armstrong, Christian McKay, Monica Bîrlădeanu, John Henshaw, Gwyneth Keyworth and Stuart McQuarrie. Principal photography took place in Bucharest, Romania in late 2011. The production budget of the film has been estimated to be approximately US$5 million or €4.4 million.[1]

• Romanian New Wave
• Cinema of Romania

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