Get out the popcorn. It's November.

Today, we're going to talk about crime, real and imagined. Also about economics, law enforcement, and different views of reality. In 2013, cinema-goers were no doubt bemused by the English-language Romanian film Closer to the Moon (sorry, you'll have to pay for that one), which depicted a bizarre story about a bank holdup in broad daylight…in 1959 Bucuresti, of all places. Many audience members were surprised to find out that the story was true.

But before we get to the communist bank robbery, let's look at a couple of short subjects.

Today's Short Subjects: Outlaws have been glamourised since at least the Middle Ages – think Robin Hood – though in a way, the Bible does it, too. Remember King David? He was an outlaw once… Anyway, the presence of the Scots Irish in North America (or anywhere, come to think of it) practically guarantees outlaws and outlaw songs. So here to get us started off are the Pogues from the Old Country singing about Jesse James. If you've seen the Brad Pitt movie, you know what a bad character James was, but the song makes him out to be some kind of hero. Like Willie Brennan and others of his ilk.

The Great Depression fostered bank robberies, and the bank robbers themselves became so glamorous that lots of gangster movies were made. As extravagant as the movies were, they didn't come close to the real-life drama inherent in the story of Bonnie and Clyde, those marauding lovers who went down in a hail of bullets. I've given you this clip so that you can notice that even back in the Thirties, 'reconstructions' of crimes provided 'reality drama' that was popular. Which leads us to…

Today's Feature Film: This film is brought to you courtesy of the communist government of Romania, no lie. It's called Reconstituirea, meaning 'Reconstruction'. Alas, it is completely in Romanian. But the film is remarkable for the fact that the bank robbers themselves are reenacting their daring daylight heist for the cameras.

At least, that's the government's story, and they're sticking to it.

What really happened? Well, all this took place in a Balkan country behind the Iron Curtain, so rumours get piled on rumours. Here's what seems to have been pieced together. In 1959, six Romanian Jews, five male, one female, formed a heist team, called the Ioanid Gang, and robbed an armoured car in front of a bank in Bucuresti. Their motivation? Depends on whom you talk to. They were all courageous freedom fighters during the Second World War, and they had all been part of Romania's communist government. At the time, the government was turning anti-Semitic, and forcing out Jewish party members. Were they trying to make a point? Or were they trying to pay their bills and fund an extravagant lifestyle, as the Securitate (police) insisted?

Just consider this: they robbed a bank in a communist country. A communist country with a 'soft currency', one you couldn't spend outside the country. One with a ludicrous exchange rate. They stole lei, not dollars. What were they going to do with it? What was there to buy in Bucuresti, anyway? Your author here was in the country twenty years later, and can attest to the dearth of consumer goods. The day a shipment of toilet paper arrived at the shop, the queue stretched around the block… And you could buy enough liquor for a party for the equivalent of five Deutschmarks…so what were they going to do with 1.6 million lei? We'd suggest insulating the flat…winters are cold there…

Anyway, the government forced these people to reenact the crime for the cameras. They showed the film to party officials. (Ironically, these commies remind me of the paranoid Joseph McCarthy…) Then, they shot all five men. They commuted Monica Sevianu's sentence to life imprisonment, let her out a few years later, and deported her to Israel.

Want to know more? Irene Lusztig is a US documentary filmmaker. She's also Monica Sevianu's granddaughter. She's made a documentary film about her family, and her personal discovery that her grandmother was a notorious figure in recent history.