The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu

Nicolae Ceausescu was a Communist dictator who ruled Romania with a firm hand from early 1965 (when he rose to power following the death of Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej) to late 1989 (when he and his wife were executed following an armed revolt prompted by the shooting of demonstrators by government security forces). Ceausescu had a remarkable talent for self-promotion and manipulating the media; his willingness to sometimes run counter to Soviet policies (he famously defied Russian authority and abandoned Romanian support of the Warsaw Pact early in his rule) made him popular with leaders in the West, and he was able to use his reputation to maintain useful relationships with the U.S.S.R. and China. But Ceausescu's regime was also massively corrupt; his administration was dominated by nepotism and cronyism, his economic policies were little short of disastrous, and he created a cult of personality that shut down any practical debate on his methods and policies until his rule finally collapsed. Filmmaker Andrei Ujica allows the late leader to fully incriminate himself in the documentary Autobiografia Lui Nicolae Ceausescu (aka The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu), which uses vintage news coverage, footage of Ceausescu's speeches and public appearances and Romanian propaganda films to chart the rise and fall off the dictator's rule, and how he unwittingly revealed his own failings to those who were willing to look. The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu received its world premiere at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival.