?The Stalker? was a film of the early ?80s. Very little audience. Mainly intellectuals. (A. V., 52)

The American movies reached our cinema houses about 3 years later, and they were of the benign sort, like ?Star Wars?. I remember standing in line for tickets to ?The Empire Strikes Back? for about 2 hours. When they showed very popular movies, they never opened the box-office inside, ?cause people could crowd in and break some window, the line was formed outside the cinema. Before ?82, when the prices went up, the tickets grew from 4, 3, or 2 lei at the ?Favorit? Cinema to 6, 5, or 4 lei. Or to 10 lei over-price. They made 25 Romanian movies a year. I remember they put a ban on ?Faleze de nisip? (?Sand Stripes?). They showed it for several days, then banned it. There was also the ?Cinemateca? where they showed good films, but it was difficult getting a season ticket, only few managed. They were generally distributed by the institutions. They also showed movies at the Museum of Art Collections, for 2-3 months a year.

In 1982-83, there was a craze about the official videos. I can?t remember when it was that the fashion died out. They had these video shows, like in a cinema, on 2 or 3 TV sets, which they placed in front and in the middle of the room. Everybody went to watch ?Lonely Wolf? with Chuck Norris, ?Star Wars III?, ?Bruce Lee?, ?Break Dance? and the like. One ticket cost 15 lei. There were also unofficial videos, people gathered for a full night of movies, they showed up to 6 in a row. Mainly porn. But also light comedies, ?Benny Hill?, ?Top Secret?. Or even ?hard core? like ?Thorn Bird?. (A. V., 97)

As for entertainment, there were the terraces and open-air cinemas. They showed Italian movies, neo-realist movies, Russian, Romanian, even German movies. And many cartoons.

On the terraces they provided meat rolls and beer. I wasn?t much of a beer man, I preferred the Cico juice. I think it was all right. (S. C., 5)

Romanian movies could only be of two kinds: historical epics, Ceausescu?s favorites (see Sergiu Nicolaescu?s movies) and contemporary frescos ? about the life of the workmen, peasants and, to a lesser extent, intellectuals. People came to the movies for the actors. No one was interested in the subject matter.