4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days

4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (Romanian: 4 luni, 3 săptămâni și 2 zile) is a 2007 Romanian art film written and directed by Cristian Mungiu and starring Anamaria Marinca, Laura Vasiliu, and Vlad Ivanov. The film is set in Communist Romania in the final years of the Nicolae Ceaușescu era. It tells the story of two students, roommates in a university dormitory, who try to procure an illegal abortion. Inspired by an anecdote from the period and the general social historic context, it depicts the loyalty of the two friends and the struggles they face.

Mungiu and cinematographer Oleg Mutu shot it in Bucharest and other Romanian locations in 2006. After making its world premiere at Cannes, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days made its Romanian debut on 1 June 2007, at the Transilvania International Film Festival. It opened to critical acclaim, and was noted for its minimalism and intense themes.

The film won three awards at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, including the Palme d'Or. It went on to win numerous honours, including Best Film at the European Film Awards and Romania's national Gopo Awards. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days became the subject of some controversy over censorship, the abortion debate, and its exclusion from the 80th Academy Awards, but in 2016 it was ranked No. 15 on the BBC's list of 100 Greatest Films of the 21st Century.

In 1987, two university students in an unnamed Romanian town, Otilia Mihărtescu and Gabriela "Găbița" Drăguț, are roommates in a dormitory. When Găbița becomes pregnant, the two young women arrange a meeting with Mr. Bebe in a hotel, where he is to perform an illegal abortion. At the college dorm, Găbița and Otilia review the items they need for the day. As Găbița nervously sits and waits, Otilia bargains and buys soap and cigarettes from the dormitory shop. Afterwards, Otilia takes a bus to visit her boyfriend Adi, from whom she borrows money. Adi asks Otilia to visit his family that night, as it is his mother's birthday. Otilia initially declines but relents after Adi becomes upset.

Otilia heads to the Unirea hotel, where Găbița has booked a room, only to be informed by an unfriendly receptionist that there is no reservation under Găbița's last name. Otilia visits another hotel, the Tineretului, and after much begging and haggling, is able to book a room at an expensive rate. After speaking with Găbița on the telephone, Otilia goes to a rendezvous point to meet with Bebe, although he had asked Găbița to meet him personally. Mr. Bebe grows angry upon hearing that Găbița is not at the planned hotel.

At the Tineretului, Bebe discovers that Găbița's claim that her pregnancy was in its second or third month was a lie, and that it has been at least four months. This changes the procedure and also adds the risk of a murder charge. While the two women were certain that they would pay no more than 3,000 lei for the abortion, it slowly becomes clear that Bebe expects both women to have sex with him. Desperate and distressed, Otilia has sex with Bebe, as does Găbița. Bebe then performs the abortion by injecting a probe and an unnamed fluid into Găbița's uterus and leaves Otilia instructions on how to dispose of the fetus when it comes out. Otilia is exasperated by Găbița's lies but continues to help and care for her.

Otilia leaves Găbița at the Tineretului to attend Adi's mother's birthday party. She is still disturbed but stays and has dinner with Adi's mother's friends, who are mostly doctors. They converse about trivial matters while Otilia and Adi remain silent. After Otilia accepts a cigarette in front of Adi's parents, one of the guests starts talking about lost values and respect for elders. Adi and Otilia retreat to his room, where she tells him about Găbița's abortion. They begin debating what would happen if it were Otilia who was pregnant, as Adi is opposed to abortion. After the argument, Otilia calls Găbița from Adi's house. Găbița does not answer, so Otilia decides to return to the hotel.

When Otilia enters the hotel room, Găbița is lying on the bed, and she tells Otilia that the fetus has been expelled and is in the bathroom. Otilia wraps the fetus with some towels and puts it in a bag, while Găbița asks her to bury it. Otilia walks outside, finally climbing to the top of a building, as Mr. Bebe had suggested, and drops the bag in a trash chute. She returns to the Tineretului and finds Găbița sitting in its restaurant. Otilia sits and tells Găbița that they are never going to talk about the episode again. Otilia stares blankly at Găbița.

Romanian Communist Party General Secretary Nicolae Ceaușescu enacted the abortion law Decree 770 in 1966 in order to increase the birth rates in the country. The procedure was permitted in only extremely limited circumstances. The law was not based on any religious opposition to abortion, but on the government's authority and control over its citizens. Academic Adriana Cordali Gradea further argued justifications for the decree rendered a view of women as second-class citizens, with no right to be heard. In the 1980s, the decree was strengthened to mandate gynecological appointments, to assess if individual women could reproduce. Author Dominique Nasta judged the film to be an accurate portrait of the oppression, and on the poor state of the economy of the Socialist Republic of Romania in the later days of Ceaușescu's regime.

During the years of Decree 770, the only available abortion methods, all illegal, could prove fatal to women, causing thousands of deaths. According to Mungiu's notes he shared with the press, the death toll was 500,000. Gradea cited a conservative 10,000 estimate. Sanctions against contraception were also in place, and sex education was rare. Following the 1989 Revolution, abortion was made lawful, and subsequently unrestricted in the first 14 weeks.

The initial idea for 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days was inspired by an anecdote from Communist Romania that director Cristian Mungiu had heard. Though he had heard it from a friend 15 years prior to the film, the incident occurred five years before that, in 1987, a date that Mungiu noted in the screenplay. Mungiu, himself a decrețel (born in the time of Decree 770), wanted to create a serious film focusing on the true story, which still affected him and felt tragic more than 15 years later. He conducted interviews with others who lived through the period, to determine if the experience was common. Aside from the anecdote, depicting the 1980s in Romania was appealing because he remembered the time, and "The attraction is for the stories that I know from that period. They belong to me. They belong to my generation". He hoped that basing the story on a factual account would also distinguish it from previous Romanian films:

In setting out to write the screenplay, he intended the focus to be less on the abortion, and more on the time and its people. He said, "it's also a film about responsibilities and decision-making". As he continued writing, he stated pushing a political point was not so much a factor in editing, as he opted not to delete potential scenes if they felt credible, asking "Would this reasonably have happened, and does it make sense to the story to keep it?"

Mungiu revised the screenplay numerous times during productions, creating 17 drafts. The major revision was the emergence of Otilia as the sole protagonist, while Găbița's part was reduced. In Mungiu's mind, Otilia had become determined to help Găbița because their shared life in the dormitory over four years would have created an emotional tie between them. The film was produced on a budget of under €600,000.

Casting took place during the autumn of 2006. Because of the extended takes, Mungiu sought actors who could remember large amounts of dialogue, and found that Vlad Ivanov was ideal for a 25-minute sequence.

Mungiu viewed auditions of many young women for the two protagonists. Anamaria Marinca had not worked with Mungiu before reading the screenplay, and found the story intriguing. She had performed on television, but had not appeared in a film before. On initially meeting Marinca, the director could not picture her in the lead role, but was won over when she began reading the first page of the screenplay. She had experience on stage, so the lengthy takes were agreeable to her. Laura Vasiliu also had stage experience.

Filming began in October 2006, with the objective to complete it by May, so that it could be entered into the 2007 Cannes Film Festival. After location scouting during the fall, most of the filming was done in Bucharest, with some scenes filmed in a hotel in Ploiești. Bucharest in 2006 was no longer how it would have appeared in 1987, due to new windows and other additions to the historic buildings. Production designer Mihaela Poenaru drew on her recollections of the period to prepare the locations. The Mr. Bebe character was also given a red Dacia car. In several scenes, the indoor locations were so small that the camera had to be placed outside of the room.

To highlight the emotional state of the characters, the film was shot in long takes, close-ups were avoided, and a score was not used. In Mungiu's mind, this would "keep a proper distance from the subject and be honest with the story". Cinematographer Oleg Mutu opted for a minimalist approach, lighting the backgrounds to display items common in 1987 while attempting not to distract from the characters too much. Mutu and Mungiu had previously developed a formula of lengthy takes and medium shots with the director's first feature film, Occident. With 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, Mutu used an Arriflex 535. Mungiu found the dinner scene to be the most difficult to shoot, as including a large number of actors in a long take made it difficult to focus. It took 17 attempts over five days to complete the scene.

In one scene, the aborted fetus is visible on screen for approximately 14 seconds, the length it took for the actors to deliver the dialogue, with Mungiu opting not to edit out the shot since it "was part of the story". The chute featured at the end of the film was constructed for the film, as there was not one at the location. The crew dropped bags of cabbage and potatoes to create the sound effect.