How We Hacked the Baccalaureate: A Romanian Comedy About Friendship, Ambition, and Choices

On March 27th, the Romanian comedy “How We Hacked the Finals” premieres in cinemas across the country. The film, directed by Tudor Petremarin, will present the story of four classmates who, though very different, unite around a risky shared plan, with which they believe they will achieve their dreams. With its dynamic storyline and colorful characters, the film will show the power of friendship and love, how thin the line is between ambition and morality, and how high the price can be for the wrong choices we make. In the lead roles, we will see the actors Karina Jianu, Stefan Iancu, Ana Toda, and Dragos Prundeanu. The producer of the film is again Tudor Petremarin, and the co-producers are Dobre Alexandru, Catalina Marin, and Razvan Marin. The cinematographer of the film is Alexandru Dobre. 

The script introduces us to 17-year-old Sophie (Karina Jianu), who is an excellent student, accepted to study Artificial Intelligence at a prestigious college in Switzerland. However, when she realizes that her mother intends to sell the family house to pay for her education, she decides to raise the money for college herself – together with her classmates Alex (Stefan Iancu), Amalia (Ana Toda), and Tomica (Dragos Prundeanu), they come up with a plan to sell the final exam topics online. Sophie is the IT specialist in the group – she builds the platform that promises to provide the topics one day before the exam. Alex is the womanizer of the high school, who has an insider – his father works in the Ministry of Education. Amalia is the popular girl, Alex's girlfriend, the daughter of a senator, and the only one who has an offshore bank account, where they can receive the bitcoins from the platform. Tomica has many followers and friends, influencers from the online community of gamers and streamers, who are followed by many children and teenagers. 

The plan works, and the money starts to pile up, until Sophie falls in love with Alex, and the love triangle that forms, divides the group. Things get even more complicated when they realize that he actually can't provide the topics through his father. So, in order to continue maintaining their plan, the four are forced to actually steal the exam materials. With each subsequent choice, Sophie begins to lose her childhood innocence and realizes that nothing is just black and white. Although her initial desire is not fulfilled as she imagined it, she comes to the conclusion that life is beautiful even with its bitter moments.

In addition to Karina Jianu, Stefan Iancu, Ana Toda, and Dragos Prundeanu in the lead roles, the actors Alexia Gales, Adrian Vancica, Maria Obretin, Serban Pavlu, and Alex Zob also participate in the film. The producer and director of the film is Tudor Petremarin. Co-producers are Dobre Alexandru, Catalina Marin, Razvan Marin, and Nikolai Urumov ((Band of Friends Pictures)). The script is the work of Mihai Manescu and Tudor Petremarin. The production's cinematographer is Alexandru Dobre.

The distribution of the film is realized under contract № BG-RRP-11.024-0072-C01 “Presentation to the Bulgarian public of the European production – the Romanian film “HOW WE HACKED THE FINALS”, financed under the Grant Scheme BG-RRP-11.024 “Presentation to the Bulgarian public of contemporary European productions from the CCI sector.