Exchange tells the tragic story of a man caught in a vicious circle of poverty and decline.

Factory worker Emil loses his job when the manufacturing plant he works in closes down. When his wife also becomes unemployed soon after, the pair decide to leave their provincial town and emigrate to Australia in the hope of finding a better life.

After selling everything they own to fund the trip, a Bucharest conman robs Emil of all their savings and Emil discovers that he is capable of anything to get his money back.

Romanian director Nicolae Margineau shot his first film, This Above All, in 1978 and achieved international success with the 1999’s The Famous Paparazzo. Much of his work takes a social-realist view of the lives or ordinary Romanians and Exchange is a hard look at the country’s struggle to make the shift to a market economy.