Project Detail

Chuck Norris vs Communism

Synopsis

In 1980s Romania, thousands of Western films smashed through the Iron Curtain opening a window into the free world for those who dared to look. A black market VHS racketeer and a courageous female translator brought the magic of film to the masses and sowed the seeds of a revolution.
Sundance Film Festival 2015 - World premiere

Details

Year
2015
Type of project
Features
Running time
78 mins
Director
Ilinca Calugareanu
Producer
Mara Adina
Executive Producer
John Battsek, Dan Cogan, James Packer, Jenny Raskin, Brett Ratner, Nicole Stott
Screenwriter
Ilinca Calugareanu

Categories

Production Status

Production Company

UK, Romania, Germany coproduction

Vernon Films, Passion Pictures, Impact Partners (US), RatPac Documentary Films (US), 4 Proof Films (RO), OpenVizor (UK)

Sales Company

United Talent Agency (US)

9336 Civic Center Drive
Beverly Hills
CA 90210
USA

Page updates

This page was last updated on 12th May 2025. Please let us know if we need to make any amendments or request edit access by clicking below.

See also

You may also be interested in other relevant projects in the database.

Smiling man facing camera with a group of people in nun costumes and Outrage placards behind Queer Edward II

Director: Theo Rollason

Year: 2026

Spring 1991: queer life is under renewed attack in Britain, and filmmaker Derek Jarman is adapting Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II into a radical protest film. Drawing on extraordinary never-before-seen footage shot by Seamus McGarvey on Jarman’s set, QUEER EDWARD 11 is about the refusal to separate art from life, politics from pleasure. Official Selection Venice Film Festival 2026 Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2026

Young man with dark hair and black jacket stands with his eyes closed in a field of common reed. Between Us and the World

Director: Wallace Minchong Li

Year: 2026

European archival footage from the 1950s documents the life of indigenous, nomadic Sahrawi children and youth in Western Sahara / Morocco. Seventy years later, local young people from Laayoune (El Aaiún) revisit locations that may have appeared in the footage. From ocean to desert to oasis, under trembling starlight, they share their thoughts on life, dreams, and utopia as they search for an uncertain upstream. Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2026

Oliver Cromwell death mask:  The death mask of Oliver Cromwell, from the British Museum collection, displayed in a rectangular wooden case. Landscapes of Shame

Director: Patrick Hough

Year: 2026

Filmmaker Patrick Hough journeys through the haunted landscapes of Ireland, where colonial violence, ecological loss and queer desire remain inscribed in the land. Moving between forests, mountains, archives and cruising grounds, the film traces the extinction of the Irish grey wolf alongside the cultural suppression that followed Cromwellian conquest of Ireland. Fragments of history surface through objects and places: a death mask of Oliver Cromwell, medieval myths of werewolves, maps drawn to measure and divide conquered territory, and landscapes where wolves were once hunted to disappearance. These materials are interwoven with contemporary nocturnal scenes of queer gathering and protest, where shame gives way to transformation, pleasure and resistance. Blending essay film, documentary and poetic fiction, LANDSCAPES OF SHAME asks how violence survives in landscapes, language and bodies - and what forms of wildness still remain. Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2026