Mingea 1958

Overview

Released in 1958, the Romanian drama film Mingea, also known as The Ball, was directed by Andrei Blaier and Sinisa Ivetici. The film was entered into the first Moscow International Film Festival. The story is set in 1930s bourgeois Romania during an economic crisis that severely impacts society, where a schoolteacher loses his job and struggles in vain to find new employment across various institutions. His four-year-old son, Ionel, watches children playing ball in the street with great interest from behind a glass window. Ionel waits for his father every night while dreaming of receiving a real yellow ball for his birthday. Because the boy is crippled, his father realizes he must secure money to buy the ball, as it represents the child's only hope to get well. The cast features Lazăr Vrabie as the father, Ion Bodeanu as Ionel, and Andrei Codarcea, alongside other actors such as Ion Ulmeni, Sandu Sticlaru, Lucia Mara Dabija, Antoaneta Gilmeanu, Consuela Rosu, and Mircea Stroe.