One of the best things about attending the Sundance Film Festival is allowing pure chance to dictate the movies you watch. That was the case this week. I’d come out of a screening of an Israeli feature film, “Princess,” and got right back in line for the next film. It turned out to be a delightful documentary from Romania called “Chuck Norris vs. Communism.” Obviously the title hooked me, but the subject matter was just as compelling.

The Communist leader Nicolae Ceaușescu ruled Romania with an iron fist until his overthrow in 1989. The secret police monitored the dissemination of Western film to prevent the public from seeing the material wealth of capitalist countries. Yet, an underground network of VHS trading allowed citizens to secretly huddle in living rooms to watch such gems as “Top Gun,” “9 ½ Weeks,” “Last Tango in Paris,” and “Blood Sport.”

The hero of the film is Irina Nistor, a member of the Central Party’s censorship board, who moonlighted as the translator of the films. Romanian adults fondly recall this mysterious woman who dubbed all the voices for so many American films (she claims to have done at least 3,000 films, even recording 10 in a row at one point). “People associated freedom with my voice,” Nistor says in the film.

The movies had an impact on Romanians, offering them a glimpse of well-stocked supermarkets, beautiful mansions, hip Western fashion, and action figures like Chuck Norris who challenged authority - and won.

One man recalls emulating Rocky by waking at 5 a.m. to run, and then drink raw eggs.

The film suggests that the highest authorities knew about the films, but did nothing to stop it. Perhaps it really was Chuck Norris that ushered in the new regime. Stranger things have happened.

– Avishay Artsy, KCRW News Producer