Beyond the Hills

Completed2012Romania, France, Belgium150 min

Alina returns from Germany hoping to persuade Voichița, the young woman with whom she grew up, to leave Romania and build a life together.…Read more +Read less −

Alina returns from Germany hoping to persuade Voichița, the young woman with whom she grew up, to leave Romania and build a life together. Instead, she finds that Voichița has joined an isolated Orthodox convent and drawn comfort from its routines and religious certainty. Alina’s longing for their former closeness meets a devotion she cannot understand, while the convent community struggles to interpret her distress. What begins as an attempted reunion becomes a conflict over who can offer care, whose account of suffering will be believed and how much independence either woman is allowed. Cristian Mungiu’s drama follows an intimate bond under pressure from poverty, institutional authority and competing ideas of love, without reducing either woman’s need for belonging to an easy answer.

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Drama

Sapphic characters & cast

Cristina Flutur

as Alina

Main sapphic character

Official platform credited performer publicity portrait

Cosmina Stratan

as Voichița

Main sapphic character

Official platform credited performer publicity portrait

YOUR FIRST LOOK

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BEHIND THE SCENES

Details & credits

Country: Romania, France, Belgium
Language: Romanian
Premiere: 2012-10-31
Runtime: 150 minutes
Director: Cristian Mungiu

Exact-film official platform titled key art; rights pending

Artwork source & permission status

Editorial review approved — rights not independently confirmed

Exact-film official platform titled key art; rights pending

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Sources & editorial notes (5)

Last researched 2026-10-31. Editorially approved.

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