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HOUSE OF EUROPEAN HISTORY
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Date
24 September 2025, 18.15-22.00 (CEST)
Location
House of European History, Rue Belliard/straat 135, 1000 Brussels, Belgium

Three recent European films engage with a (European) past in highly diverse ways. Like the photographic exhibition, this film series explores different types of involvement with a past and the various motivations and intentions behind them. 

Before the screening of each film, join us at 18.15 for a 45 minute guided tour of Presence of the Past, uncovering how Europeans engage with the past in highly diverse ways, from commemorating historical events to participating in re-enactments, from taking tourist selfies to destroying monuments.

Soldier in front of burning building

“I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians” (2018) - Director Radu Jude

“I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians” (2018) is a black comedy film written and directed by Radu Jude. In a square in the centre of Bucharest, a young film director named Mariana is rehearsing a dramatic and stylised re-enactment of a dark episode in Romania's history. This problematic episode concerns the fascist regime of Marshal Antonescu that joined forces with Hitler in 1941 to invade the Soviet Union, citing two objectives. One was to regain territories that Stalin had seized in 1940 and added to the Soviet republics of Moldavia and Ukraine. The other was to cleanse both these lands and further conquests in Ukraine, particularly Odessa, of Jews and Roma. This film won the Crystal Globe for the best feature film at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.

The films will be introduced in English by film curator Wouter Hessels and will be followed by a Q&A and discussion. Entrance to the screenings is free - registration in advance is mandatory.