Through the Ashes of the Empire (Romanian: Prin cenușa imperiului) is a 1976 Romanian war drama film directed by Andrei Blaier. It is a picaresque tale of betrayal, survival and coming of age based on the novel Jocul cu moartea by Zaharia Stancu.
Plot
In 1917, during World War I, the Diplomate and young Darie escape from a Bucharest occupied by the German Army only to come across, as they progress 'through the ashes' of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the sufferance, despair, generosity and heroism that will lead them to very different conclusions.