90 minutes, Color/BW, English/Romanian/French/Hebrew, Subtitled

Filmmaker Irene Lusztig unearths a dark family secret in search of answers and reconciliation in her breakthrough feature documentary, RECONSTRUCTION. In communist Romania 1959, Lusztig’s maternal grandmother, Monica Sevianu, took part in a failed bank robbery (known as the Ioanid Gang bank heist) and was condemned to life in prison. Forty years later, the filmmaker returns to Bucharest to reassemble the pieces of her controversial story and construct a portrait of her estranged and enigmatic grandmother. The title of the documentary derives from a bizarre government propaganda film that reenacts the crime and trial of the robbery and shockingly stars the actual members of the Ioanid Gang – including Monica Sevianu. Combining interviews, contemporary footage shot in Bucharest and rare archival images, Lusztig investigates the subversive crime of six Jewish intellectuals, revealing a mesmerizing family story spanning three generations while presenting a compelling and complex examination of modern-day Romania.