The car crash that killed Nemescu and his sound engineer means the director will never fulfil the promise of this authoritative, clever debut, which he may have made additional cosmetic trims to but seems virtually completed...

Unfussy handheld camerawork, believable dialogue and characters, plus flourishes of magical realism sit comfortably alongside acerbic swipes at Romanian corruption and America’s self-serving foreign policies.

Captain Jones (a driven performance from Assante) and his troop of US Marines arrive fifty-four years too late for corrupt station master Doiaru (Vasilescu), who bitterly recalls the Americans leaving his country to Soviet tyranny after World War 2, and keeps the train on its platform.

But, Doiaru’s daughter (Dinulescu) is attracted to Jones’ sergeant (Elman) is matched by the rest of the community, including a mayor and striking factory workers who see the troops as liberators from Doiaru’s stranglehold over the village, aggravated by Jones’ war-mongering.

Stately paced but never dull, California Dreamin’ (subtitled Endless due to Nemescu’s death) bustles with local flavour – a Dracula-themed brothel, a Romanian Gypsy Elvis, a replica Eiffel Tower in a deserted field – and paints a compassionate yet critical portrait of a country still licking its wounds after decades of Ceausescu rule and dreaming of a better life… preferably in California.

Rob Daniel