Romanian Film Festival – 3rd Edition

Horațiu Mălăele

Famous Romanian actor, director and cartoonist, Horațiu Mălăele, was born in 1952, in Targu Jiu. He had his first art exhibit in 12th grade. In 1975, he graduated from the Institute of Theater and Cinema in Bucharest. He began his professional acting career on the stage of the National Theater in Piatra Neamt. He then moved to Bucharest and has performed at legendary theaters such as the Nottara, Odeon, Bulandra, etc., where he has had many roles of great success. He started his career as a theater director with shows such as a Princely Feast by Theodor Mazilu, The Flea by Georges Faydeau, or Carlo against Carlo by Paul Ioachim, for which he won the Romanian Comedy Festival Prize, in 1994. He made his cinema debut in 1974, in The Hidden Mountain. He also directed movies such as The Hat(2004), Silent Wedding (2008) and Happy Funerals (2013). He had over 30 art exhibits and published an autobiographical book called Horatiu about Malaele, as well as Wanderings, a collection of short episodes, aphorisms, and memories.

Tudor Giurgiu

Tudor Giurgiu (born 1972 in Cluj-Napoca, Romania) is a Romanian film director. He was President of Romanian National Television, TVR between 2005 and 2007. Tudor Giurgiu is also a director of music videos and has made documentaries. Giurgiu owns Librafilm, an independent production company and is the founder and president of Romanian Film Promotion, which puts on the Transilvania International Film Festival. He was our special guest at the Romanian Film Festival in 2016, with his film "Why Me?".

Oana Giurgiu

A law and journalism graduate, Oana Giurgiu directed television documentaries before working in film on Cristi Puiu’s 2005 Cannes Un certain regard winner, “The Death of Mr Lăzărescu” and then on Kornél Mundruczó’s 2008 Cannes FIPRESCI winner, “Delta”. She produced three of Tudor Giurgiu’s films: “Love Sick” (Berlinale 2006, Panorama); the 2012 Romanian box office hit “Of Snails and Men” (Warsaw IFF); and “Why Me?” (Berlinale 2015, Panorama). She also produced Peter Strickland’s “Katalin Varga” (Berlinale 2009, Silver Bear, European Discovery of the year at European Film Academy Awards) and Cristi Puiu’s “Sieranevada” (Cannes 2016). Oana co-produced Hungarian titles “Eden”, dir. Agnes Kocsis (Rotterdam IFF 2020) and “Spiral” (in post-production), dir. Cecilia Felmeri and the Slovak “The Servants”, dir. Ivan Ostrochovsky (Berlinale 2020, Encounters), and the Turkish “Before two Dawns” (in post-production), dir. Selman Nacar (working progress awards at Meetings on the bridge, Istanbul IFF 2020, and Antalia 2019), produced the greatest Romanian box office hit in recent years, “Moromete Family: On the Edge of Time”, which received ten Gopo Awards in 2019. After working on several television documentary productions, she made her directorial debut with a feature-length historical documentary, “Aliyah DaDa”, screened in Astra Sibiu, Jerusalem Jewish IFF, alongside other Jewish festivals and screenings worldwide, and recognized as Best Romanian Documentary at the Gopo Awards 2015, now she just launched her new documentary “Occasional Spies”, Special mention of the Jury at Astra Film Festival 2021.

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.