Don't Expect Too Much From the End of the World

(Romania/2023—directed by Radu Jude) 

Radu Jude is among the most radical filmmakers working today and one of the few unafraid to diagnose the absurd evils that make contemporary living what it is. In his latest and most darkly comic film, Jude explodes conventional boundaries of narrative, charting a course through one day in the life of a severely overworked film production assistant, Angela, who drives around Bucharest filming accident victims auditioning to be in a safety video for a multinational corporation.

At the same time, the sleep-deprived Angela upkeeps her own side project—a trash-talking alter ego with more than 20,000 online viewers that serves as the film’s perverse Greek chorus. Through ingenious intercutting, Jude initiates a conversation with his country’s past and present about the ability of the captured image to exploit, and to contort the truth. In Romanian with English subtitles. (163 min.)