Aferim!

Aferim! (2015) is a Romanian period drama you can watch online on iFILM, directed by Radu Jude. In 1830s Wallachia, a lawman named Costandin and his teenage son are hired by a boyar to track down a runaway Roma slave.

The hunt across dusty plains, taverns and fairgrounds becomes a tour of the era's cruelty. The fugitive, Carfin, slept with his master's wife, and the closer Costandin gets, the clearer it grows that "justice" here means the whip and the branding iron. The constable spouts proverbs and bigotry with such everyday calm that the casual violence lands harder than any speech could.

Teodor Corban anchors the film through encounters with priests, Turks, landowners and peasants, each adding a stroke to the portrait of a society. Jude shot it in stark black and white, framed like an old Western, and took home the Silver Bear for Best Director at the Berlinale. Harsh, funny and uncomfortably current. Stream Aferim! online on iFILM.