Directed by Radu Muntean
Original title: Hârtia va fi albastră
Romania, 2006, 95 min.
Screenwriters: Răzvan Rădulescu, Alexandru Baciu, Radu Muntean
Director of photography: Tudor Lucaciu
Cast: Paul Ipate, Adrian Carauleanu, Dragoş Bucur, Alex Potocean, Tudor Aron Istodor, Andi Vasluianu

On a December morning in 1989, a roadblock unit pulls over an AFV in front of a military unit on the outskirts of the town. Two soldiers in blue uniforms get out of the vehicle for a smoke. All the passengers of the AFV, including the two who were out smoking quietly, are killed... The revolution finds Costi Andronescu three months away from his release from the army. He believes that the mission of any Romanian, after so many years of dictatorship, is to fight the terrorists with all their might, no matter what the higher officers say. He runs away to fight at the national TV headquarters, and an officer decides to try his luck and search for Costi over there...

Second-time director Radu Muntean goes back straight into the maddening vortex of December ’89, right where History was made: at the Romanian TV headquarter. The recreation of those days is as meticulous and ambitious as in Mitulescu’s movie, but Muntean’s is the most likely to be labeled as „movie about the Revolution”, because his docudrama fictitiously encapsulates real events from back then. Doubling the tormented atmosphere of those days with the conflicted story of two different characters from different generations who act differently one from another in a crisis situation, the director reinforces the mix of legitimate confusion and naive idealism of that time. It’s the riskiest movie out of the three released in 2006 that deal with the Revolution, because it doesn’t bet on humor (like Porumboiu’s movie) or the power of close-up (like Mitulescu’s). "The Paper Will Be Blue" is made out of long tracking shots; more, it dares to throw the story, Revolution included, in a vertiginous and blinding darkness (hail to the director of photography, Tudor Lucaciu) that fits the radical spirit of the movie. It might be challenging to cope with it, but that’s really the right look! — Mihai Chirilov

For his second film, director Radu Muntean plunges us into the confusion of the long night-day-night of Dec. 22, 1989—the moment of Ceauşescu’s overthrow and the uncertainty of its immediate aftermath. With no one sure who if anyone is running the country or whether a counter-coup has restored the dictator to power, an armored military unit hunkers down in a quiet Bucharest suburb, awaiting orders but mainly trying to stay out of trouble. A young militiaman, Costi (Paul Ipate), eager to join the rebel forces, escapes from the unit and heads to the National Television station, where it seems a battle for control is underway; his captain, career military man Lt. Neagu (Adi Carauleanu), is worried that Costi’s desertion might lead to his unit being tagged pro-Ceauşescu (or possibly anti-). He assembles a patrol to go on a manhunt for the deserter, while nervous citizens watch history unfolding on the television sets. A gripping, taut rendition of the birth pangs of contemporary Romania, The Paper Will Be Blue is history from the ground up—an attempt to re-create historical events as they were lived by the average Romanian. — Richard Pena, Program Director, Film Society of Lincoln Center