Romanian Film Festival Seattle- 2nd Edition

Radu Gabrea

Radu Gabrea graduated from the Faculty of Construction and the Theatre and Film Art Institute in Bucharest. His film Too Small for such Great War (1969) participated at the Locarno Festival. Beyond the Sands (1973), forbidden by communist censorship, is considered his most important Romanian film of the 70s by Mira and Antonin Liehm, UCLA Press. Between 1974-1996, Gabrea lived in Germany. His first German film, Jakob, don't be afraid (1981) opened the Jewish Film Festival at the Kennedy Center in the US and was selected at Telluride, Colorado. In New York Times, Vincent Canby discussed his cult film A Man like Eve (1984) in a very laudatory manner. Returning to Romania in late the 1990s, the director and producer Gabrea made several documentaries, among which Struma (2000), awarded the Special Mention at the International Festival in Jerusalem, Goldfaden's Heritage (2004), and Rumenye, Rumenye (2006, 2013). He gained his Ph.D. in Film Studies from the Catholic University of Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, with a thesis on Werner Herzog and German medieval mysticism, about which Henri Agel wrote in Positif that "it is one of the most beautiful books on cinema ever written." In 2011 he received the Knight's Cross from the Federal Republic of Germany.

Victoria Cociaș

Victoria Cocias graduated from the Theatre and Film Art Institute in Bucharest in 1980. She has given life to classical roles in national and international plays from Caragiale to Chekov, from Shakespeare to Edward Albee. She worked with Romanian directors before '89 - Andrei Blaier, Dan Pita, Nicolae Margineanu, Lucian Pintilie, Radu Gabrea - as well as with directors of the Romanian New Wave: Adrian Sitaru, Cristi Puiu. She has also worked with Nae Caranfil in Asfalt Tango and Pericoloso Sporgersi. At the Romanian Film Days (2012) she received the Special Mention for her interpretation of Elena Ceausescu in Three days before Christmas, directed by Radu Gabrea. The show and film La Divina made after Terrence McNally's play Master Class, in which Victoria Cocias plays Maria Callas brings her international acclaim: Kyra Winthrop-St. Gery considers her performance exceptional and James Claridge writes that she is a "a great actress in a great show".

Florin Lăzărescu

A very prolific and versatile writer, Florin Lăzărescu (b. March 28, 1974) is a well-established author leaving in Iași, Northeastern Romania. He is a graduate of the Faculty of Letters at the University of Iași (1998) and a founding member of FILIT - Iași International Festival of Literature and Translation. Screenwriter of the short film Lampa cu căciulă / The lamp with a Hat (2006, directed by Radu Jude, winner of best short film at the Sundance Film Festival). Co-writer of the medium-length film A Shadow of the Cloud… (directed by Radu Jude, which premiered at Cannes in 2014) and of the feature film Aferim! (2015, directed by Radu Jude, winner of the Silver Bear at the Berlinale, nominated for Best Screenplay at the European Film Academy Awards in 2015, winner of the Gopo Award for Best Screenplay in 2016). Florin debuted as an author in 2000 with a volume of short stories: Cuiburi de vîsc / Mistletoe Nests (Outopos, Iași). He has also published the novels Ce se știe despre ursul panda / What Is Known about the Panda Bear (Polirom, 2003), Trimisul nostru special / Our Special Envoy (Polirom, 2005, 2014), Amorțire / Numbness (Polirom, 2013), the collections of stories Lampa cu căciulă / The Lamp with a Hat (Polirom, 2009) and Întîmplări și personaje / Stories and Characters ( Polirom, 2015), and the children's book Puiul de balaur, puiul de zmeu și puiul de om / Dragon Baby, Ogre Baby and Human Baby (Cartier, 2019). His latest novel is entitled Noaptea plec, noaptea mă-ntorc / I Leave at Night, I Return at Night (Polirom, 2021). His books have been translated and published in 10 languages.

Monica Filimon

Monica Filimon was awarded a PhD in Comparative Literature by Rutgers University. She is Associate Professor of English at Kingsborough Community College, CUNY. She has published articles on French, German, and Romanian films. Her research focuses on the New Romanian Cinema, its sources, evolution, and major representatives. Her first book Cristi Puiu: Ineffable Experiences of the Profane World was published by the University of Illinois Press in February 2017. She is currently working on a second book tentatively titled Corneliu Porumboiu: Notes on the Absurd.