I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians

I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians (Romanian: Îmi este indiferent dacă în istorie vom intra ca barbari) is a 2018 black comedy film written and directed by Radu Jude. The title is pulled from a speech by Romanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Mihai Antonescu to the Council of Ministers preceding the 1941 Odessa massacre.

Plot

In a square in the centre of Bucharest, a young film director named Mariana is rehearsing a dramatic re-enactment of a dark episode in Romania's history. This was when the fascist regime of Marshal Antonescu joined forces with Hitler in 1941 to invade the Soviet Union, citing two objectives. One was to regain territories that Stalin had seized in 1940 and added to the Soviet republics of Moldavia and Ukraine. The other was to cleanse both these lands and further conquests in Ukraine, particularly Odesa, of Jews and Roma.

Mariana's private life becomes problematical when she finds that she is pregnant by her married lover and her professional life becomes difficult when her plans alarm the ministry that is subsidizing the event. A representative, while conceding that her script is historically accurate, tries to persuade her to tone down and to relativise the terrible crimes of the regime. If she refuses, he says that the municipality will ban the event. After long argument, in the end she accepts some cuts and also accepts a date with the man.

The event goes off well, but reactions among volunteer participants and the audience are mixed. Some Romanians do not fully accept their country's well-documented responsibility for deportations and mass murder.

Cast

Ioana Iacob as Mariana
Alex Bogdan as Traian
Alexandru Dabija as Movila

Production

In the film, a stylized reenactment of the Romanian campaign on Odessa is played on the forecourt (now a parking lot) in front of the Royal Palace of Bucharest.

Accolades

The film was selected as the Romanian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 91st Academy Awards, but it was not nominated. It won the Crystal Globe for the best feature film at the 2018 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.