Cette thèse porte sur la représentation des femmes dans le cinéma roumain en tant que lieu révélateur des enjeux sociaux, économiques et institutionnels qui façonnent le renouvellement de la filière cinématographique roumaine au XXIe siècle. Notre recherche est axée sur l'époque postcommuniste, moment où la production filmique du pays atteint son état le plus critique, avant de connaître une reconnaissance internationale inouïe. Notre analyse s'articule en trois temps, afin de comprendre les ruptures et les permanences sociohistoriques manifestes dans le traitement des personnages féminins à l'écran et dans la participation des femmes à l'industrie. A partir d'une analyse détaillée de la généalogie du « nouveau cinéma roumain », nous nous concentrons sur les figures des femmes dans les productions du cinéma d'auteur et du cinéma commercial du pays. Enfin, nous illustrons les principaux enjeux et contraintes pratiques de l'émergence - et de l'affirmation - de ce nouveau cinéma à travers l'examen des parcours des femmes cinéastes. / This PhD dissertation centers on women's participation and representation in Romanian cinema, as a means of understanding the multiple social, economic and institutional stakes intervening in the renewal of the Romanian film industry in the early 21st century. Our research focuses on the post-communist era, when the Romanian film production falls into its most critical state, before achieving unprecedented international recognition. We articulate our analysis around three chronological moments, aiming to perceive how social and historical ruptures and continuities pervade the treatment of female characters on screen and the women's presence in the film industry. We aim our attention at the New Romanian cinema of the 2000's. By tracing the genealogy of this « new cinema », we concentrate on the shaping of female characters in both auteur and commercial Romanian cinema. We illustrate the primary grounds conducing to the rise and consolidation of this renewed film industry by observing the career paths of Romanian female filmmakers.

Contemporary Romanian cinema, particularly in its internationally successful instances, displays formal characteristics that have often led to its being seen in terms of the so-called Slow Cinema trend in contemporary cinema. This thesis proposes that there is something distinctive about slowness in contemporary Romanian films, similar to and yet different from Slow Cinema. Through a detailed analysis of films made by Cristi Puiu and Cristian Mungiu, two of the most representative contemporary Romanian filmmakers, Romanian slow films emerge as a less stringent form of slowness characterised by tension. This thesis first looks at some of the ways in which slowness can be developed in film - through the use of the long take and the trope of waiting along with the use of stillness and silence. Within this slowness an attitude of contemplation emerges, a characteristic that is key to Slow Cinema. Through close textual analysis of a number of films with a reputation for slowness, both classic and more recent examples, this thesis looks at how the techniques used to develop slowness in film allow for variation and how they can be used not only to create this attitude of contemplation but also to create tension. While this aspect has been less discussed with the more prevalent focus on Slow Cinema and its themes of contemplation, tension can be identified in a variety of films, both those considered part of Slow Cinema and those considered slow films. The distinctiveness of slowness in contemporary Romanian cinema is partly to do with its being rooted in Romanian culture. This study looks at Romanian cinematic and cultural inheritance, specifically at how slowness figures in this history. This thesis contributes to the existing body of research on contemporary Romanian cinema addressing its most salient characteristic, its sense of slowness, by placing it in relation to wider discussions about slowness and Slow Cinema as well as by linking its distinctiveness to wider cultural notions and practices of temporal organisation as well as the social history of the nation.

This thesis addresses aspects of Romanian society and cinema, by analyzing post-communist films through the perspective of marginality. The central hypothesis of this study refers to the ways in which films illustrate conditions of post-communist Romanian society, as they consider representations of the periphery through the angle of allegories of marginality. Following a long tradition, especially in literary studies, where it refers to the overt insertion of symbolic meanings, allegory refers in this study to a less noticeable delivery, by using a postmodern interpretation of the concept. This translates to detecting a latent meaning in films, by interpreting them in a broader context pertaining both to the film's circumstances (production, distribution and reception), and to the broader framework of the film's content. What connects post-communist Romanian films is a concern for matters of marginality, as they focus on dissensions in society, intergenerational conflicts, youth and limited opportunities of social movement, and the use of satire as a way of handling the bleak conditions of life. Aiming to provide a realistic representation of post-communist life, new wave Romanian films focus on the mundane reality of everyday life. The films discussed in this thesis expand beyond the scope of the new wave, and present a diversity of aesthetic approaches and relating perspectives on allegory—from distinct to obscure—defined by the contextual conditions of post-communism.

Ce projet de thèse est centré sur l’étude de la censure en tant que processus socio-politique, révélateur des logiques individuelles et institutionnelles qui se conjuguent dans la réalisation d’un film. Cette recherche est axée sur la période 1965-1989, « l’époque Nicolae Ceaușescu », remarquable par la quantité de films censurés. Pour ce faire, nous avons consacré la première partie du travail à l’analyse de l’organisation de la cinématographie roumaine, considérée dans le contexte politique, social et économique d’après la 2de Guerre Mondiale et jusqu’à la chute du régime. Une attention particulière est accordée ici à l’évolution des institutions de contrôle de la culture ainsi qu’aux discours qui façonnent les normes de la création cinématographique. Pour comprendre les différentes formes que peut revêtir la censure, nous nous situons ensuite à un niveau intermédiaire d’analyse, celui des institutions. Nous avons ainsi identifié et analysé plusieurs structures, comme les studios de production, l’Association des Cinéastes, la Radio Europe Libre, la Securitate, dont les fonctions censoriales vont du guidage à la répression. Dans la dernière partie de cette analyse, nous nous penchons sur des cinéastes et des films importants de la période. Nous avons fait le choix d’analyser les trajectoires des réalisateurs les plus représentatifs de la période, par le prisme de leurs dossiers de surveillance établis par la police politique. La Securitate les surveille parce qu’ils ont en commun une vision « non-conforme » de la réalité socialiste ; ce faisant, celle-ci révèle ce qui était (in)désirable dans la réalité socialiste. Enfin, pour illustrer comment la censure affecte la matière des films, nous proposons l’analyse de quelques cas notoires de film interdits, mais aussi de films qui permettent d’exemplifier en détail différents tabous, diverses formes d’intervention ou les réactions des réalisateurs à toute sorte de pressions. Le fait de choisir la censure comme un angle d’analyse privilégié est utile pour comprendre les contraintes, les servitudes et les espaces de liberté des cinéastes, les contradictions, les dits, et les non-dits du régime. / This PhD project focuses on the study of censorship as a socio-political process, revealing the individual and institutional logics that conjugate in the process of filmmaking. The research analyzes the period 1965-1989, which is the "Nicolae Ceauşescu era", remarkable for the amount of censored films.In conducting my research, I dedicated the first part of the work to the analysis of the Romanian cinematography organization, considered in the political, social and economic context, from the 2nd World War until the fall of the Communist regime. Particular attention is paid here to the evolution of culture control institutions and to the discourses, especially those of the Communist Party leaders, which shape the standards of the film production. In order to understand various possible forms of censorship, I then approached an intermediate level of analysis, that of institutions. Thus, I identified and analyzed several structures such as production studios, the Filmmakers’ Association, Radio Free Europe and the political police, whose censorial functions varied from guidance to repression.In the last part of this work, I looked into filmmakers’ biographies and important films of the period. I chose to analyze the trajectories of the period’s most representative filmmakers through the lenses of their surveillance files made by the political police. The Securitate monitored them because they shared a "non-compliant" vision of the socialist reality; while doing so, the political police revealed what was acceptable or undesirable in that reality. Finally, in order to illustrate how censorship affects films, I propose the analysis of some notorious cases of banned film, but also of films that exemplify various taboos, detailed forms of intervention or reactions of the filmmakers to any kind of pressure. Choosing censorship as a main angle of analysis is useful for the comprehension of the filmmakers’ constraints, servitudes and liberties, but also the understanding of contradictions, of what is made visible or kept silently hidden by the regime.