Romanian film "The Death of Mr. Lazarescu" to be screened March 1, 2013

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Still from the Romanian film "The Death of Mr. Lazarescu" (2005)

ALBANY, NY (02/07/2013)(readMedia)-- THE DEATH OF MR. LAZARESCU (MOARTEA DOMNULUI LAZARESCU, Romania, 2005, 150 minutes, color, in Romanian with English subtitles, directed by Cristi Puiu) will be shown on Friday, March 1, 2013 at 7:30 p.m. in Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, on the University at Albany's downtown campus. Sponsored by the New York State Writers Institute as part of its Classic Film Series, the screening is free and open to the public.

An elderly man is compelled by illness to embark on an all-night tour of the Romanian medical system in this brilliant and peculiar film by leading "Romanian New Wave" director Cristi Puiu. Winner of the Un Certain Regard prize at Cannes, the film was named the best feature of 2006 by J. Hoberman in the Village Voice. Stephen Holden of the New York Times proclaimed it "a thorny masterpiece," and Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian called it a "blacker-than-black, deader-than-deadpan comedy."

THE DEATH OF MR. LAZARESCU is the third film in the continuation of a mini-series within the Classic Film Series entitled, The Future of Film. The selections for The Future of Film series are based on film critic J. Hoberman's list of global cinema's quintessential 21st century motion pictures. Hoberman offers his selections in his book Film After Film (2012), an exploration of the future of the film industry with the advent of new digital image-making technologies, globalization, and accelerated cultural change. The final screening in the series, in advance of St. Patrick's Day, will be HUNGER (March 8), an Irish 2008 film about Bobby Sands and the 1981 Prison Hunger Strike.

For additional information contact the Writers Institute at 518-442-5620 or online at http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst.