Like so many recent Romanian films, Stuff and Dough is tremendously well made on almost no budget, and blends the rhythms of ordinary life with a subtly ominous atmosphere and elements of thriller.

New York is beginning to look like Bucharest on the Hudson.

Making the minutiae of life hold continuous interest is no easy task, as demonstrated by [Cristi] Puiu's fledgling first feature, 2001's Stuff And Dough.

Its austerity masks a finely tuned script about the difficulties of navigating between corruption and survival when individual aspiration is put above all else.