THE CASE OF ENGINEER URSU (2023) – documentary film online

Directed by: Șerban Georgescu, Liviu Tofan
Cast: Andrei Ursu, Vasile Hodiș, Dan Voinea, Doru Cosma, Eugenia Crângariu, Vasile Manea Drăgulin
Producer: Șerban Georgescu (Kolectiv Film), Oana Muntean (co-producer – Victoria Film), Liviu Tofan
Cinematography: Bogdan Slăvescu, Daniel Oprea
Editing: Șerban Georgescu
Sound: Alex Alexandru
Year: 2023
Category: Feature film
Genre: Documentary
Duration: 98 minutes

31,921 – Cinepub viewers

PLOT SUMMARY

March 4, 1977. An earthquake measuring 7.4 on the Richter scale strikes Romania, leaving behind over 1,500 dead, dozens of buildings destroyed, and thousands more damaged. Immediately afterwards, under the direct guidance of the communist state apparatus, the assessment and consolidation of the affected buildings begins.

Exactly four months after the earthquake, on July 4, 1977, Ceaușescu summoned all those involved in the reconstruction, engineers, architects, local authorities, and forbade them—under threat of imprisonment—to continue any work related to the reinforcement.

Engineer Ursu was also in the room, the only one to denounce the dictator’s criminal order in an anonymous letter sent to and read on Radio Free Europe. This cost him his life, as he was tortured and killed by Ceaușescu’s Security Service.

After the fall of the communist regime, engineer Ursu’s son, Andrei Ursu, seeks justice by bringing the two officers responsible for his father’s death to trial. Despite the meticulously constructed case, in 2023 the defendants were definitively acquitted by the High Court of Cassation and Justice, and the film remains the only form of justice and recognition in the case of dissident Gheorghe Ursu.

FESTIVALS

• 2024 – Gopo Awards – Nomination for Best Editing
• 2023 – TIFF Sibiu
• 2023 – TIFF Oradea
• 2023 – Râșnov Film and History Festival

CRITICAL REVIEWS:

• “This is Andrei Ursu’s film, about his fight for justice in his father’s name. Who else had Andrei’s tenacity and strength, his courage to risk his life twice by going on hunger strike to force the authorities to stop obstructing him? I don’t know if there is another comparable case in the world. Here, he is certainly unique, and his value as a human model and moral benchmark is remarkable in our bleak social landscape, and all the more necessary.” – Liviu Tofan
• “As a cinematic spectacle, the nearly 100 minutes of film are impeccably supported visually. The rigor of the epic construction and commentary bears the unmistakable mark of journalist Liviu Tofan (yes, the one who worked at Radio Free Europe), with the interviewees revealing with painful clarity the institutional and (supposedly) human misery that struggles to absolve the direct perpetrators and their reckless institution of any criminal responsibility. Director Șerban Georgescu brings the same expressive inventiveness that I noticed in “Bein Romanian: A Family Journal”. The selection of images from the archives of the 1970s and their counterpointing through intelligent editing, often sarcastic or simply mocking, not only gives the film rhythm, but also enriches its meanings”. – Bogdan Burileanu, agenda.liternet.ro
• “Any Romanian lawyer who watches the documentary ‘The Case of Engineer Ursu’ feels the need, at the end, to go and hand in their graduation diploma to the secretariat of their own faculty. It is a defeat to be a lawyer in a country like Romania, and even more than that: it is an insult, a disregard for the efforts of so many generations of young people who studied hard in school only to be sent to do something completely different: to push the Sisyphean rock of nothingness.” – Iulia Vucmanovici, agenda.liternet.ro
• “The story of Andrei Ursu is the story of a rare gesture of courage, patience, tenacity, intelligence, and love. In his father’s name, Andrei Ursu is both Hamlet and Horatio. Without spilling blood. At the cost of his own sacrifice.” – Mihai Brezeanu, agenda.liternet.ro
• “The Case of Engineer Ursu is a courageous film, courageous because it fights against wickedness, ignorance, and oblivion, and tells everyone, (not) only those who want to listen, the Truth, the Truth about an illiterate, cruel, and cunning dictator, about us, the Romanian people, with our “That’s how God wanted it” and “God help us!”, often powerless in the face of the Truth.” – Octavian Neculai, agenda.liternet.ro
• “We often feel like we are in a dolly zoom shot, in which the camera approaches or moves away from the subject, which remains perfectly framed, in perfect synchronization with the change in the zoom’s focal length, which has the effect of dramatically altering the depth of field of the setting. The technique was first used by Hitchcock in Vertigo, with a spiral staircase, thus cinematographically capturing the vertigo of the protagonist who suffered from a fear of heights.” – Cristian Caloian, agenda.liternet.ro
• “After watching The Case of Engineer Ursu, you find it very difficult to get up from your seat and leave the theater feeling extremely tired, as if you had run a marathon. The documentary is extremely dense and heavy: it manages to compress into 90 minutes the 33 years spent running around the courts in search of justice by Andrei Ursu, the son of engineer Gheorghe Ursu, who was killed in November 1985 while in Securitate custody.” – Mihnea Lazăr, digi24.ro

TRIVIA:

• On November 17, 2025, Romania commemorates four decades since the death of engineer Gheorghe Ursu, one of the most symbolic figures of civic resistance during the communist period.
• “In this context, the documentary ‘The Case of Engineer Ursu’, directed by Liviu Tofan and Șerban Georgescu, becomes part of the ‘Memorial of Ursu’ initiative, a programme dedicated to honouring his memory and promoting a culture of truth.” – ziarulpozitiv.ro
• Liviu Tofan, journalist and co-director of the film, stated for Radio România Cultural, describing the film: “Under this title, ‘The Case of Engineer Ursu’, there are two stories of engineers named Ursu, father and son. They are emblematic stories, that of Gheorghe Ursu for the history of Romania under communism in the 1980s, and the other, that of Andrei Ursu, for Romania today, emblematic being his 30-year struggle in court to obtain justice for his father. These are two stories that begin with the 1977 earthquake, and I would say that they are two stories with a red dot: one red dot on communist Romania and the other red dot on the justice system in democratic Romania. Unfortunately, the second story, that of Andrei Ursu, is not much more encouraging than that of Gheorghe Ursu. Here we are, 35 years after the Revolution, waiting for a fair ruling in the case of the death of dissident Gheorghe Ursu, a ruling that is fair not only from a legal point of view, but also from a historical one.
• Liviu Tofan is a journalist and writer. He worked for 20 years in the Romanian editorial office of Radio Free Europe, between 1973 and 1994, advancing from news editor to head of the news department and deputy director. As an author, he has published “The Fourth Hypothesis: Investigation into a Staggering Espionage Affair” (Polirom, 2012) and “The Jackal of the Romanian Security Service: Terrorist Carlos in the Pay of Romanian Espionage” (Polirom, 2013). Terrorist Carlos in the Service of Romanian Espionage” (Polirom, 2013). Liviu Tofan is also a documentary filmmaker, with his film “Brasov 1987. Two Years Too Soon” winning the 2017 UCIN Award for Best Television Documentary.
• A graduate of Ion Neculce High School, with studies at the Faculty of Construction in Bucharest (1991-2000), in his second year of college, Șerban Georgescu began working as an image editor at Canal 31, a modest television station owned by Adrian Sârbu. An important moment came in 1995, when he met Ovidiu Bose Paștina, with whom he created special montages for fashion shows by Janine (Adrian Sârbu’s wife). He worked on music videos and commercials for MediaPro. In 1998, he founded his own company, Kolectiv Film, which collaborates with advertising agencies. In 2003, he filmed “Everest”, a documentary about a group of Romanians going on an expedition. In 2006, he began a regular collaboration with Norwegian documentary filmmaker David Kinsella.
• The film premiered at the National Museum of the Romanian Peasant a few days before a final court decision in the Ursu death case; the court postponed the final ruling on July 4, 2023, setting a new date for July 27.
• During the debate that followed the screening of “The Case of Engineer Ursu” on July 25, 2023, Liviu Tofan recounted how, in order to document the film, he spoke with participants in that meeting who were still alive. The people recounted, off the record, what it was like, confirming Ursu’s account, but refused to speak on camera. Forty-six years later.
• The Case of Engineer Ursu is produced by Kolectiv Film in co-production with the “Gheorghe Ursu” Foundation, Victoria Film, the Follow Art Association, and the Romanian Television Society.
• The film was made with the support of the National Center for Cinematography, with the participation of UPFAR ARGOA and the National Press Agency Agerpres.
• After the December 1989 Revolution, the case of Gheorghe Ursu’s death was reopened. In 1990, the National Institute of Forensic Medicine in Bucharest determined that Ursu’s death was violent and established that “the internal and external injuries could have been caused by repeated blows with hard objects to the abdominal region approximately 3-4 days prior.”
• Director Liviu Tofan stated: “There is not a single Security officer who has been convicted for an act committed before December 1989. Not even one.”

LINES:

• “My mother has been a widow for 33 years. My father was killed by the Security Police in 1985.” – Andrei Ursu
• “We had a Security Police car in front of our house 24 hours a day… It was torture, I thought we would never get out of there.” – Andrei Ursu
• “Tomorrow I’m going back to Romania. I’ve made this trip about 180 times. I started in March 1990. That’s when I first tried to find out the truth.” – Andrei Ursu
• “In the trial of my father’s torturers, we had to prove the crime against humanity.” – Andrei Ursu
• “It’s been 33 years since I started this fight.” – Andrei Ursu
• “When my father came back from the meeting, he said: ‘He’s a criminal!’ (Ceaușescu)” – Andrei Ursu
• “He soon realized that he had to write a letter to Radio Free Europe. It wasn’t official, nothing was published in the Official Gazette.” – Andrei Ursu
• “I hugged him. At the morgue. It was clear to see – he had been beaten.” – Andrei Ursu
• “I had a wonderful childhood.” – Andrei Ursu

ARTICLES:

• Review: “About Romanian justice, a Sisyphus of nothingness – The case of engineer Ursu,” by Iulia Vumanovici – agenda.liternet.ro
• Review: “In the shadow of the great Ursu – The case of engineer Ursu,” by Mihai Brezeanu – agenda.liternet.ro
• Review: “The red moon and the film The Case of Engineer Ursu,” by Octavian Neculai – agenda.liternet.ro
• Review: “Watch out, the plaster is falling! – The Case of Engineer Ursu,” by Cristian Caloian – agenda.liternet.ro
• Review: “These all too sad and ugly facts – The Case of Engineer Ursu,” by Bogdan Burileanu – agenda.liternet.ro
• A disturbing documentary, premiering on TVR1 – tvr.ro
• “The Case of Engineer Ursu.” The documentary that presents “33 years of injustice.” The sentence has been postponed” – romania.europalibera.org
• “The Case of Engineer Ursu”: a film by father and son – radioromaniacultural.ro
• “The Case of Engineer Ursu”, a documentary about the search for justice – rri.ro
• “The Case of Engineer Ursu” hits theaters – adevarul.ro
• Kolectiv Film and the “Gheorghe Ursu” Foundation present the documentary film “The Case of Engineer Ursu” – guerillaradio.ro
• The Case of Engineer Ursu. And the case of Romania – revista22.ro
• “The Case of Engineer Ursu”: Ceaușescu survived the Revolution, and the ghost of the Securitate still haunts Romania’s courts – digi24.ro
• The documentary “The Case of Engineer Ursu”: A living testimony to truth and collective memory – ziarulpozitiv.ro
• The fight for justice. The documentary “The Case of Engineer Ursu” – hotnews.ro
• “The Case of Engineer Ursu” – kolectiv.ro

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