Please join the Harriman Institute, the Romanian Cultural Institute in New York, the East Central European Center, the Columbia University Central and Eastern European Club (CUCEE), and Liga Studentilor Romani din Strainatate (LSRS) for a screening of the documentary film Chuck Norris vs. Communism , followed by a discussion with Irina Margareta Nistor, Romanian translator, film critic, and the subject of the documentary. The film A documentary about the magic of film and the power it has to change lives. In 1980s Romania, thousands of Western films smashed through the Iron Curtain, opening a window into the free world for those who dared to look. A black-market VHS racketeer and a courageous female translator brought the magic of film to the people and sparked a revolution. Synopsis Communist Romania -1980s. Culturally isolated, ideologically censored; all images of life outside the Iron Curtain are cut off and TV is reduced to a couple of hours of propaganda bulletins each day. From the drab concrete housing blocks to the food ration queues, an overwhelming fear of state surveillance had prevented the people from stepping out of line. But there was one window into the free world available to anyone who dared to look. In the mid-1980s, thousands of Hollywood #64257;lms were smuggled into the country through a well-oiled operation that swelled and swelled until it reached millions across Romania. The #64257;lms were dubbed by one courageous female translator whose distinct voice captivated the whole nation and became a symbol of freedom. The fearless stories of action heroes like Chuck Norris and Jean-Claude Van Damme captured every child's imagination, but it was the lavish settings and backdrops that mesmerized this unique audience. For the #64257;rst time people saw what had been denied to them supermarkets stacked full of food, the trappings of wealth, the latest fashions, super cars, and most of all, freedom. Runtime 80 minutes. In Romanian with English subtitles.

Irina Margareta Nistor , born in 1957, worked as a translator of TV programs in Romania under the Communist regime, and is known for secretly dubbing over 3,000 banned movie titles on VHS tapes smuggled in from the West. During the time of the Cold War, these tapes quickly spread throughout Romania, and her voice became widely known throughout the country. In a recent New York Times video about Nistor, one of the interviewees observes "We did start to wonder why all the films were dubbed by the same voice (Nistor's) is the most well-known voice in Romania after Ceausescu's..."Nistor worked for The Romanian Television from 1980 until 1999, first as a film translator, then as a program producer. In 1993, she produced, in French, for TV5 Europe a one-hour program called "The Romanian Cinema after 1989." A documentary has been produced about Nistor, Chuck Norris VS Communism, directed by London-based Romanian filmmaker, Ilinca Calugareanu. European premiere was at the Edinburgh International Film Festival on 24 and 25 June 2015. The film was screened at the Hawaii European Cinema Hawaii's European Film Festival on 17 October 2015. Nistor remains active within the Romanian film industry. In 2012, she launched the Psychoanalysis and Film Festival, headed by psychoanalyst Andrea Sabbadini, which was the Romanian extension of the European Psychoanalytic Film Festival presided by Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci. For nine years, she has presented a weekly one hour Sunday program on Radio Guerrilla, The Voice of the Movies. In 2006, she published a book about her mentor, film critic D.I. Suchianu. She was an HBO adviser and a member of the screenplay jury in film financing procedures of the Romanian National Fund of Cinematography. She has also been the film selector for the DaKINO international film festival.

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