Nicolae Ceausescu

Crafted by Romanian filmmaker Andrei Ujic? (with phenomenal editing and sound design by Dana Bunescu) from about 1,000 hours of footage covering 25 years, "The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu" comprises state visits, speeches and holidays by the former despot, providing a startling sense of dictatorial monomania. The film opens and closes with rough video of the hasty trial before Ceausescu and his wife were executed in 1989, and even there, he is defiant and self-regarding to the very end. With its hefty running time, the film builds an unexpected emotional resonance, though never exactly sympathy, as over the years Ceausescu seems to drift further and further into his fantasy vision of himself, making the film like a loop that repeats endlessly in his head.

Crafted by Romanian filmmaker Andrei Ujic? (with phenomenal editing and sound design by Dana Bunescu) from about 1,000 hours of footage covering 25 years, "The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu" comprises state visits, speeches and holidays by the former despot, providing a startling sense of dictatorial monomania. The film opens and closes with rough video of the hasty trial before Ceausescu and his wife were executed in 1989, and even there, he is defiant and self-regarding to the very end. With its hefty running time, the film builds an unexpected emotional resonance, though never exactly sympathy, as over the years Ceausescu seems to drift further and further into his fantasy vision of himself, making the film like a loop that repeats endlessly in his head.

The political isolation of Romania is nearly complete. The Communist government of Nicolae Ceausescu--the man whom sycophantic poets call the "Genius of the Carpathians" and the "Helmsman Who Guides"--is busy stockpiling foreign reserves. Romanian diplomats have been dispatched to China and other lands looking for allies outside Europe. In the turbulent East Bloc, only Romania remains stable and silent.

She once painted propaganda posters for the regime of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. Now the walls of the gallery that artist Claudia Cotrutza French has opened in downtown Los Angeles use Ceausescu's own words and deeds to paint a bleak picture of the dark decades of his rule. There's the oil painting she calls "Brainwashing," which depicts a faucet spewing meaningless rhetoric over a head that is symbolically cut open to expose a vulnerable human brain. The stream of phrases carefully printed in Romanian are taken from an actual televised speech that Ceausescu delivered in late 1989, three days after his police and soldiers had fired on students at an anti-government protest.

Communist Party chief Nicolae Ceausescu was reelected president Friday in a unanimous vote by the 369-member Grand National Assembly, the Romanian Parliament. He has been president for 11 years and head of the party for 20.

The ruling National Salvation Front fired its deputy economics minister Friday for being too closely associated with the former Communist dictatorship of Nicolae Ceausescu.

Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu conceded that there have been failures and shortfalls under his leadership in 1987. In his New Year's message, he did not mention recent protests by his people, however, and he urged them to show greater order and discipline. Ceausescu also made no specific reference to widespread food and energy shortages that have plagued Romania since the early 1980s.

The government has earmarked $10 million to finish a monumental palace begun by Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu before he was overthrown and executed in 1989, officials said Thursday. The government decided last week to finish the building, second largest in the world after the Pentagon, said Victor Dumitrache, a deputy minister of public works. Construction stopped abruptly on Dec. 22, 1989, the day Ceausescu was overthrown, with the lavish building about 80% finished.

The brother of executed Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was jailed for 15 years today on mass murder charges. Nicolae Andruta Ceausescu, 66, a former general and head of the secret police training school, is the first Ceausescu relative to be convicted in connection with attempts to crush last December's anti-Communist uprising in which more than 1,000 people were killed.

A military tribunal hearing genocide charges against Nicu Ceausescu, son of executed Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, refused a defense request today to release him from jail because of deteriorating health. Ceausescu is said to be suffering from hepatitis, cirrhosis of the liver and other ailments. He pleaded innocent to charges he ordered security forces in Sibiu to open fire on demonstrators during the December revolution while he was Communist Party chief in the region.

As Romanian military and civilian officials mingled at a VIP reception aboard a yacht that belonged to executed dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, a U.S. Navy band played an American selection: the Gershwins, Cole Porter and Broadway show tunes. The occasion was Romanian Navy Day, but the message being delivered at this Black Sea port was broader than pride in the country's sailors: America, we are with you. If the musical choices weren't enough, the blunt-talking defense minister, Gabriel Oprea, made it crystal clear in his Navy Day speech, solemnly listing the names of "the heroes" who have been killed in Afghanistan.

Constantin Ticu Dumitrescu, 80, once jailed as a Romanian communist-era "enemy of the state," died Friday at his home in Bucharest two weeks after he was released from a hospital where he was being treated for liver disease, national news agency Agerpres reported. After communist rule ended in 1989 with the overthrow and execution of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, Dumitrescu was elected to parliament, where he fought as a senator for the exclusion of former communists from public life.

The most unlikely subjects often make for the most deliciously comic films. That's the case with "12:08 East of Bucharest," which carefully builds a sly and unexpected human comedy out of a dispute over whether a revolution would still be a revolution if nobody showed up. "Bucharest" is one of the wave of new films from Romania that have captured the imagination of the cinema world.

Reaction is mixed in Bucharest to the new Romanian Museum of Contemporary Art, the Guardian newspaper of London reports. The reason: It is in the same building as the parliament, a huge palace constructed during the reign of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, executed in 1989. Those feelings are explored in one of the museum's exhibitions, "Romanian Artists Love Ceausescu's Palace?!", according to the newspaper. Some artists decry the connection between art and government, while others see it as sending a positive message.

Ilie Ceausescu, 76, who served as a deputy defense minister under Nicolae Ceausescu, his older brother and Romania's late communist dictator, died Tuesday in Bucharest of complications from pneumonia. In 1990, the Washington Post reported that Ceausescu and his brother had sold advanced Soviet military technology to the United States. Born in the village of Scornicesti in southern Romania, he pursued a political and military career aided by his older brother, who ruled Romania from 1965 to 1989.

Romanian Communists said they will seek approval to exhume the remains of Stalinist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu because they suspect that he might have been tortured before he was executed in 1989. "We plan to ask authorities to allow us to exhume Ceausescu and his wife to bury them in a Christian way," said Cristian Niculae of the Romanian Workers Party.

Nicu Ceausescu, the youngest son of executed dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, returned to prison to resume serving a 20-year sentence for murder today after being hospitalized two weeks for liver disease. The transfer of the reputed former playboy from a civilian hospital to the medical ward of a Bucharest prison was sharply criticized by his attorney, who said Ceausescu should not be left to die in prison.

Communist Party chief Nicolae Ceausescu, who has staunchly opposed the democratic reforms sweeping the rest of Eastern Europe, was reelected today. The party's Central Committee unanimously chose Ceausescu--the only candidate--to another five-year term, the official Agerpres news agency said. Delegates to the 14th Communist Party Congress greeted the selection of Ceausescu with "cheers and ovations," Agerpres said.

Offering paintings, bric-a-brac, luxury boats and kitsch gifts, Romania auctioned off hundreds of items Friday that once belonged to dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife, Elena, in the fifth such sale of the ousted strongman's possessions. "We plan to spend some $8,000 today," one man said as the bidding on the Ceausescus' belongings started in the macabre setting of a black marble mausoleum of former Communist leaders in a central Bucharest park.

Crunching over a snowy path to the grave of former dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, children, former friends and retirees said Saturday that it was wrong to kill the late ruler on Christmas Day 10 years ago. At first light, 43-year-old Dinel Staicu arrived at the Ghencea military cemetery in southwest Bucharest and placed a "Communist Almanac" on what is thought to be Ceausescu's grave. "He died a great hero," said Staicu, from the southern city of Craiova.