The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu by Andrei Ujica is a film made from archive footage showing the power of the Romanian dictator between 1965 and 1989. The filmmaker uses a process of transforming the original status of the images. The result enables us to raise specific questions about the way power is shown, the balance of power involved, or how one man can be given total power, and in more general terms, how he can obtain it. If, Ceausescu obsessed by his own image, was caught up in hagiography, Ujica, for his part, subtly traces the excessive praise in a finely orchestrated montage and a soundtrack free of all commentary. This reading tries to characterise this sort of documentary by distinguishing, on the one hand, the propaganda mechanisms determining the internal politics of the Conducator and on the other hand, the strategies of his foreign policy. On the first issue, the film portrays a man who cares, constantly reminding us of his complete devotion to the Romanian people and yet in the end they were let down. One of the great qualities of the film is that it gives us the chance to measure, over time, the erosion of power, the inevitable fall of the dictator. As for the second issue, we can observe with fascination, Ceausescu’s wish to be recognised that willingly extends beyond the borders of Romania in a bid to fraternise with the leaders and the people of other communist countries, in a gesture of hypocrisy barely hidden (but revealed through Ujica’s aesthetic and theatrical mediation) towards the leaders of the western democracies. In this way, Ceausescu’s political schemes are shown to be what they really were, an usurpation of power.