In Bucharest in 1941, Max, a young theatre director, does everything possible and impossible to get the government to approve the Barașeum — a theatre where all the Jewish artists purged from the city’s cultural institutions can find work, dignity, and a stage. Max must fight censorship, the terror of anti-Semitic laws, and his own scorn for Yiddish theatre.
Synopsis
Nazi-occupied Bucharest, March 1941. Jewish artists have been thrown out of every cultural institution in the city. The Ministry of Culture offers them a lifeline: the Barașeum theatre—if they can get past the censorship commission. The rules are brutal: perfect Romanian, comedy only, zero politics.
Max (25), a poet turned reluctant director, must hold everything together —the terrified actors, nihilists plotting to drop a spotlight on the German ambassador’s head, and Jeni (30), a French refugee who speaks no Romanian, but whose voice could save them all.
The feared committee arrives. Numbers are cut one by one. Max fights for every song, every joke, every dancer. Then a message arrives from the German ambassador: he is coming regardless. The show must go on.
Opening night. The house is full—Nazis, communists, Zionists, Hasids, merchants—all laughing together. Until Jeni, swept away by the audience’s love, begins singing in Yiddish.
About the Director
Andreea Vălean
A writer, producer, and director whose work has been recognized at Cannes, Berlin, and New York, Andreea Vălean has been at the center of Romanian cinema for over two decades.
As a screenwriter, her credits include Traffic (Palme d’Or, Cannes 2004), How I spent the End of the World (Official Selection, Cannes 2006), and When I want to Whistle, I Whistle (Silver Bear, Berlin 2011). Her producing work spans documentary and fiction, from Diary of Mihail Sebastian to the Slovenian co-producers Inventory and Birma (both directed by Darko Sinko, currently in post-production), as well as the upcoming feature Next Time We Will Fail Better.
As a director, her short film Play! was selected at the Cairo International Film Festival and won the Female Excellence Award in Paris.
Her work has been supported by the Royal Court Theatre London, Sundance/NHK, the Kieslowski ScripTeast Award at Cannes, and the New York Center for Jewish History.
Artistic Statement
In 2019, at the Barașeum, I directed a musical spanning 150 years of Yiddish theatre in Romania. The most emotional moment was the one dedicated to the Barașeum itself: a theatre that operated between 1941 and 1944, offering work and rescue from the Holocaust to every Jewish artist thrown out of Romania’s cultural institutions for no other reason than being Jewish.
I want to make a film about this real story. A tragicomedy about theatre in impossible times—like these now. Because they were highly entertaining, the Barașeum’s shows had the power to bring together fascists and communists, Zionists and nihilists, the very poor and the very rich, uniting them through shared laughter and emotion. A Miracle Will Happen will look at this complex phenomenon and explore its mechanisms—a story that meant a great deal to universal theatre history, and an even greater deal to the Jewish community.
Year
(in production)
Film Type
Feature Narrative
Director/Producer
Andreea Vălean
Production Country
Romania
Funding
With Assistance from Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany
Funded by the German Federal Ministry of Finance
