The New Year That Never Came

Often moving and bitterly funny, The New Year That Never Came is an immersive ensemble drama set in 1989 on the eve of the Romanian revolution and the fall of the Ceaușescu regime.

Closing the LIFF Spring Film Weekender 2025, Bogdan Muresanu’s first feature - winner of the Orizzonti Award for Best Film at the 2024 Venice Film Festival - memorably captures a historic moment through the eyes of ordinary people. A TV director must find a way to save his New Year’s show and casts a distressed theatre actress. A teenager plans to flee to Yugoslavia by swimming across the Danube, watched by the secret police. A factory worker panics after his son writes a letter to Santa Claus saying his Dad wants Ceaușescu dead.

"Builds to an explosive crescendo, seamlessly blending archive footage into the action and capturing the exhilarating impact of history in the making." - Wendy Ide, Screen International

“…a symphonic work that earns its sustained, unsubtle use of Maurice Ravel’s ‘Boléro’ throughout its rousing climax, with an audience-friendly arthouse sweep” – Guy Lodge, Variety

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