Catalin Mitulescu's debut feature is the first of two Romanian movies screening here on successive days that dwell on the events surrounding, or leading up to, the overthrow of that country's Stalinist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu on Dec. 23, 1989. [...] where the second of these, Corneliu Porumboiu's "12.08 East of Bucharest," is a shoestring affair, financed largely out of the director's pocket, "The Way I Spent the End of the World" (Comment j'ai fete la fin du monde) comes with major French backing and Martin Scorsese and Wim Wenders credited as associate producers. Mitulescu's 17-year-old heroine, Eva, is a natural rebel, but it's a clumsy gesture by her boyfriend Alex that lands her in deep water after he shatters a bust of Ceausescu at school.

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