In its own country, it debuted at the Transilvania International Film Festival in June 2007, where it attracted long queues. With only 50 theatres in Romania, and the lowest rates of theatre attendance in the European Union, a crew on a caravan toured 15 towns without theatres over 30 days for screenings that year. At Transylvania, Mungiu was happy to see that Romanian viewers could comprehend the dark comedy. Filmmaker Sorin Avram documented the caravan tour through Focșani, Petroșani, Călărași and other communities, and interviewed some of the audience of 17,584 people, who described it as shocking and disturbing.