In 1985, the country was in its 20th year of dictatorship, its economy was collapsing, and Ceausescu’s increasing paranoia about plots against him meant that “his reign was becoming harsher and harsher,” says Calugareanu. “Rules were changing from one day to the next. So there was this general paranoia that took over.”

In the midst of this regime, Teodor Zamfir began smuggling illegal videos from the West and enlisted Irina Nestor, a translator for state TV, to do voiceover dubs into Romanian. Dirty Dancing, Once Upon A Time In America, Rocky, Top Gun, even Last Tango In Paris—you name it, Nestor dubbed it. In all, she dubbed over nearly 3,000 films, which made hers the most recognized voice in the country after the dictator’s. Zamfir then duped the tapes and sold them clandestinely for viewing at illegal video parties in apartments and homes throughout the country.

“The films challenged your perspective on life,” says one Romanian viewer in the film. “There was a whole life in the video player,” says another.

In a country limited to one TV station which broadcast two hours a day—and where travel abroad and video players were illegal—that life, more than anything else, was what fascinated the Romanian populace. Some watched the films less for their plot’s sake and more for the images of the West they contained.