Viewer advice: Contains explicit sex scenes

Sex is fodder for black comedy in this scathing portrayal of life in the age of COVID-19.

When a high school teacher’s sex tape (complete with wig and wacky cat mask) is leaked online, she faces backlash from a conservative parents’ committee as well as the animus of a wider society riddled with superstition and prejudice. This fallout, already wild and volatile, is only exacerbated by the tense atmosphere of a Bucharest plagued by the pandemic, circa 2020.

Winner of the prestigious Golden Bear at the 2021 Berlinale, this comic, determinedly offbeat provocation by eclectic Romanian New Wave auteur Radu Jude (The Dead Nation, MIFF 2018; Aferim!, MIFF 2015) takes aim at everything from sexist double standards to Romania’s political system to cinema itself. Polemical and unashamedly audacious, Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn throws cinema vérité, surreal satire and essay film into a blender to confront a world in which everyone is seemingly willing to cast the first stone.

“Jude is a filmmaker deeply engaged with the history of his homeland, its very essence, and his exasperation at Romania’s self-serving nationalistic myths practically radiates off the screen.” – Slant