The Actress, the Dollars and the Transylvanians

This, part two of the popular Romanian Red Western ‘Transylvanian trilogy’, came out of the productive 1970s marked by a new freedom in subject matter, as the Western became a new genre in national film production.

The 1970s were an extremely creative period for Romanian cinema, when a new generation of young filmmakers came to the fore. They infused an outmoded industry that used Soviet film classics as models with new spirit. At the outset of the decade, they also benefited from a slight political thaw.

The Actress, the Dollars and the Transylvanians is the second part of a trilogy that began with The Prophet, the Gold and the Transylvanians (1977) by Dan Piţa, who also directed the third part – The Oil, the Baby and the Transylvanians (1980).

The trilogy combined the iconography specific to the American Western with topics imposed by the domestic film industry: duty to the homeland, defusing ethnic conflicts, and the bad influence of religious beliefs. The film is about two brothers who go to America to persuade another brother to return to Romania.

Cristina Corciovescu / Rotterdam IFF