Cinema of Romania
Encyclopedia
The cinema of Romania is the art of motion-picture making within the nation of Romania
or by Romanian
filmmakers abroad.
As upon much of the world's early cinema, the ravages of time have left their mark upon Romanian film prints. Tens of titles have been destroyed or lost for good. From these films, only memories, articles and photos published in the newspapers of the time have remained. Since 1965 Arhiva Naţională de Filme (A.N.F.) (The National Film Archive) has made serious efforts to reconstruct the obscure history of the beginnings of Romanian
cinema, in parallel with the publication of memoirs and private research undertaken by great lovers of cinema, such as film critics Ion Cantacuzino
and Tudor Caranfil, together with the directors Jean Mihail and Jean Georgescu.
Romanian films have won Best Short film at Cannes
in 2004 and 2008, with Trafic, and Megatron.
Romanian
cinema achieved prominence in the 2000s with the appearance of such films as The Death of Mr. Lazarescu
, directed by Cristi Puiu
, (Cannes 2005
Prix un certain regard winner), and 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
, directed by Cristian Mungiu (Cannes 2007
Palme d'Or
winner). The latter, according to Variety
, is "further proof of Romania's new prominence in the film world."
, very short (many less than one minute) one-shot scenes capturing moments of everyday life.
The first cinematographic projection in Romania took place on 27 May 1896, less than five months after the first public film exhibition by the Lumière brothers
on 28 December 1895 in Paris
. In the Romanian exhibition, a team of Lumière brothers' employees screened several films, including the famous L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat
. The event was arranged by Edwin Schurmann, the impressario of Adelina Patti
and Eleonora Duse
, and was hosted by the French-language newspaper L'Indépendance Roumanie. Mişu Văcărescu (descendant of the boyar
Văcărescu family
), a journalist for L'Indépendance Roumanie, noted that "there took place a representation of 'the miracle of the century'". Initially an elite attraction, permanent screenings both in the building of L'Indépendance Roumanie and in other locations (such as the biggest room of the newspaper building on Eforiei Spitalelor Civile Boulevard, then the Hugues room across from the old National Theatre) helped bring the ticket price down and cinema became a popular spectacle in Bucharest.
The next year, in 1897, the French cameraman Paul Menu (an employee of the Lumière brothers) shot the first film set in Romania, The Royal parade on 10 May 1897, showing King Carol I
mounted, taking his place on the boulevard to head the parade (A.N.F.). He continued by filming other 16 news items over the following two months, but only two survive today as nr. 551 and 552 in the Lumière catalogue. Menu's first Romanian films were presented on 8 June/23 June 1897, including images of the floods at Galaţi
, Romanian Navy vessels on the Danube
, and scenes from the Băneasa Hippodrome.
However, by 1898 public interest in cinema started fading, so Paul Menu offered his camera for sale ("L'Indépendance Roumaine", 16 March 1898). The camera was bought by doctor Gheorghe Marinescu
who became the first Romanian filmmaker, realizing a series of short medically-themed films between 1898 and 1899. Gheorghe Marinescu
, together with cameraman Constantin M. Popescu, made in 1898 the first scientific film in the world, Walking difficulties in organic hemiplegia
. In a letter to doctor Marinescu from 29 July 1924, speaking about these films, Auguste Lumière acknowledges that "unfortunately, few scientists followed the path you opened". His films were considered lost until 1975, when a TV reporter named Cornel Rusu discovered them in a metal cabinet in a hospital bearing the famous doctor's name. (A.N.F.)
Starting in 1906, in Macedonia
, the Aromanian Manakia brothers made a career with their social and ethnographic themed actualities (A.N.F.).
Film screenings resumed in Bucharest
in 1905 at various locations, as the Edison, the Eforie, the Lyric Theatre, and Circul Sidoli. In May 1909, the first theater in Romania built especially for exhibiting films, Volta, was opened on Doamnei Street in Bucharest
. Transylvania
, then part of Austria-Hungary
, had already had its first movie theatre in Braşov
since 1901. Volta was followed starting with the next year by others, such as Bleriot on Sărindar Street, Bristol, Apollo and Venus. The programs consisted of actualities
and short "little films with actors" (for example, a five minute shot of Victor Eftimiu
and Aristizza Romanescu during a stately walk on the seashore). The films gradually increased in running time, eventually developing into newsreels
and fiction films.
An investigation regarding the beginnings of Romanian cinema, published in an insert of the newspaper "Cuvântul
" (The Word) in December 1933, mentions that in 1911 an "arrangement of a play for the cinema", Păpuşa (The Doll
), was produced by the cameramen Nicolae Barbelian and Demichelli in collaboration with the head of the actors' troupe, Marinescu. At the same time, Victor Eftimiu
, in collaboration with Emil Gârleanu, wrote a film script which they offered for free to a certain Georgescu. The resultant film, called Dragoste la mănăstire (Love in a Monastery) or Două altare (Two Altars) and shown only in 1914, played for just eight days. This was despite the fact that the film was composed merely of shots taken during two rehearsals for the role, attended by Tony Bulandra and Marioara Voiculescu, the rest of the film being taken up by intertitles and long letters.
The first Romanian fiction film was Amor fatal (Fatal Love Affair), starring Lucia Sturdza, Tony Bulandra and Aurel Barbelian, actors from the National Theatre Bucharest
. The film was directed by Grigore Brezeanu, a director from the same theatre and the son of the great actor Ion Brezeanu. The film played between 26 and 30 September 1911 at the Apollo Cinema.
On 7 November 1911, the film Înşirăte mărgărite... (Spread Yourselves, Daisies) premiered. It was based on Victor Eftimiu
's poem, and in fact showed scenes filmed in different locations in the country for the completion of the play with the same name that was playing at the National Theatre Bucharest
; it was what today would be called a magic lantern
show. Aristide Demetriade and Grigore Brezeanu directed. Aristide Demetriade appeared in the role of Făt-Frumos
. This film/theatre hybrid was well-received by spectators of the day.
In December 1911, the theatrical magazine Rampa published a note under the heading The Cinema in the Theatre (signed by V. Scânteie) indicating that "The Maestro Nottara is in the course of making a patriotic work re-creating the Romanian War of Independence on film, so that today's generations might learn the story of the battles of 1877, and for future generations a live tableau of Romanian bravery will remain".
As a result, the director of the Bucharest
branch of the Gaumont-Paris
studio, Raymond Pellerin, announced the premiere of his film Războiul din 1877-1878 (The 1877-1878 War), scheduled for 29 December 1911. A "film" made in haste, with a troupe of second-hand actors and with the help of General Constantinescu, who commanded a division at Piteşti
, from whom he had obtained the extras needed for the war scenes, "Războiul din 1877-1878" was screened a day before by the prefect of the capital's police, who decided that it did not correspond with historic fact. Consequently, the film was confiscated and destroyed, Raymond Pellerin was declared persona non grata and he left for Paris, while the "collaborationist" general saw himself moved to another garrison as a means of discipline.
On 5 May 1912, the magazine Flacăra (The Flame) brought to its readers' attention the fact that "as it is known, a few artists have founded a society with the goal of producing a film about the War of Independence
... Such an undertaking deserves to be applauded". The initiators were a group of actors: Constantin Nottara, Aristide Demetriade, V. Toneanu, Ion Brezeanu, N. Soreanu, P. Liciu, as well as the young Grigore Brezeanu, associate producer and the creative force behind the whole operation. Since a large amount of money was needed for the production, they also brought into this effort Leon Popescu, a wealthy man and owner of the Lyric Theatre. The group received strong backing from government authorities, with the army and all necessary equipment being placed at its disposal, plus military advisers (possibly including Pascal Vidraşcu). The cameras and their operators were brought from abroad, and the print was prepared in Paris
ian laboratories. Could Grigore Brezeanu have been the film's director? No source from that time gives credence to such a hypothesis. On the contrary, they present him as "initiator", producer of the film, beside members of the National Theatre and Leon Popescu. Furthermore, it appears that it was he who attracted the financier of the entire undertaking. In 1985, the film critic Tudor Caranfil discovered among Aristide Demetriade's papers his director's notebooks for Independenţa României, unequivocally confirming that he was the film's director. Thus, the film's production crew was as follows: Producers: Leon Popescu, Aristide Demetriade, Grigore Brezeanu, Constantin Nottara, Pascal Vidraşcu. Screenwriters: Petre Liciu, Constantin Nottara, Aristide Demetriade, Corneliu Moldoveanu. Director: Aristide Demetriade. Cinematographer: Franck Daniau. Makeup and hairstylist: Pepi Machauer (see a clip here: A.N.F.).
On 2 September 1912, at the Eforie cinema, the largest movie theatre in Bucharest
, the premiere of Independenţa României
took place. Despite all its shortcomings as the theatrical game of the actors, the errors of an army of extras uncontrolled by direction which provoked unintended laughter in some scenes and rendered dramatically limp those of the beginning, the film was well received by spectators, being shown for several weeks. Through this realization, through the dimensions of its theme, through the distribution method chosen, through the genuine artistic intentions, through its professional editing (for the time), the creation of this film can be considered Romania's first step in the art of cinematography.
And yet he who had realized this work, the man who kept the whole team together, the theatre director Grigore Brezeanu, was left disappointed. The press of the time made ostentatious mention of Leon Popescu, who financed the film and made sure to distance the other financiers, buying their part; no such praise was heaped on the artistic makers of the film. This caused producer Grigore Brezeanu to say in an interview given to the magazine "Rampa" and published on 13 April 1913: "My dream would have been to build a large film studio. I have come to believe that this is impossible. First of all, we are missing a large capital investment. Without money we cannot rival the foreign studios...A studio, according to our financiers, is something outside art, something in the realm of agriculture or the C.F.R.
Hence I have abandoned this dream with great regret."
But Leon Popescu — after the appearance of certain products allegedly of the Romanian cinema, filmed by the Pathe-Frères
studio and featuring second-hand actors; in fact, these were a mixture of foreign films with scenes shot in which Romanian actors appeared (they were presented on the stages of movie theatres, in the form of theatre productions played by actors "in flesh and blood" coupled with filmed scenes of the same actors), known as "cinemasketches" — responded with a wide-ranging offensive plan, forming the Film de artă Leon Popescu (Leon Popescu Art Film) society in 1913.
Collaborating with the troupe of Marioara Voiculescu, which included actors sympathetic to Popescu (C. Radovici, Ion Manolescu and G. Storin), they managed to put on the market the following films: Amorul unei prinţese (The Love Affair of a Princess) (1913), Răzbunarea (Revenge
) (1913), Urgia cerească (The Sky-borne Disaster) (1913), Cetatea Neamţului (The German's Citadel) (1914), Spionul (The Spy
) (1914), with all but the penultimate proving to be well below expectations.
Notably, in 1913, there appeared another Romanian film, Oţelul răzbună (Steel Takes Its Revenge), directed by Aristide Demetriade - who that same year directed another film: Scheci cu Jack Bill (Sketch with Jack Bill). The film was financed by the director, with substantial help from Professor Gheorghe Arion (8,000 lei
). The 40-minute film received favorable reviews and enjoyed great success. Today only one reel remains at the A.N.F., taking up a minute of projection time; happily, all the actors can be seen in close-up. The film's producer was Gheorghe Arion; its director and editor was Aristide Demetriade; Franck Daniau was the cinematographer, and it starred Aristide Demetriade, Andrei Popovici, Mărioara Cinsky, Ţacovici-Cosmin, Nicolae Grigorescu
, Petre Bulandra and Romald Bulfinsky.
At the end of 1914, the Leon Popescu Society merged with the Cipeto society with the aim of importing small-sized projectors and at the same time of renting films produced by the Marioara Voiculescu company to third parties.
During the First World War
, film production was mainly directed toward documentaries and newsreels. The few Romanian cameramen were mobilized, and during the retreat to Moldova all film cameras in the country were saved. His Majesty Ferdinand I
was filmed on the front, together with the generals Constantin Prezan
and Alexandru Averescu
, while Queen Marie
was filmed in hospitals, easing the suffering of patients. Few sequences remain of the thousands of metres filmed. Some of these were later used in the film Ecaterina Teodoroiu (film), produced in 1930. ( here)
After World War I
, internationally, film production developed in accordance with the interest of businessmen in the new industry. New studios endowed with good equipment and specialists well trained in the new technology appeared, directors and actors known to the public at large were attracted to work in the new industry, as were renowned screenwriters. Markets were opened for finished film products, which through a market-tested formula managed to bring profits and finance new productions. Film industries with lavish financial resources came to dominate the market, decimating weak national cinemas.
In this context, an active Romanian film industry was but a dream. The approximately 250 movie theatres then in existence in Romania
could not even generate the amount of money needed for one film, with profits out of the question. Specialist training for film crew members was non-existent, and Romanian actors were unknown abroad so their work could not be sold outside Romania. Neither did the state accord any attention to film production. Its only preoccupation in this regard was to collect the tax on screenings, which provided a fairly consistent revenue stream, its proceeds at one time amounting to 2/3 of total revenue derived from this type of tax. (This also happened in Communist Romania
, when the tax on screenings, collected from the film distribution network, covered all the expenses of the Council of Socialist Culture and Education, including film production.)
To all these were added two other catastrophes: Leon Popescu died in 1918, after which his "studio" (in fact some improvised sets in warehouses) on the grounds of the Lyric Theatre burned down; miraculously, of all the films, only one was saved: a copy of Independenţa României
(this being incomplete, with about 20 minutes missing). (According to other versions of the story told at the time, suffering from a crisis of nerves brought about by his films' failures, Leon Popescu set fire to his own storehouse of films and died shortly thereafter.)
In 1920, a film studio, Soarele (The Sun), began producing Pe valurile fericirii (On the Waves of Happiness), which starred the Hungarian actress Lya De Putti
, and the Romanian actors Maria Filotti
, Ion Manolescu, Gheorghe Storin, Alexandru Mihalescu and Tantzi Cutava-Barozzi. It was directed by Dolly A. Sigetti and the script was based on a play by K. Williamson. The film was never completed. Nevertheless, a few sequences were shown in the form of a trailer.
The year 1921 marked the production of the first Romanian animated film
, more precisely of the first Romanian animated cartoon
, conceived by Aurel Petrescu and called Păcală pe lună (Păcală on the moon). Surprisingly, all the animated films of this director and artist, which he was producing into the sound era, are lost. Showing foresight, Aurel Petrescu created an album with about 80 stills, today owned by the A.N.F. and from which we can get an idea of the techniques used by Petrescu in animating. Some stills have on their edge the black strip denoting recorded sound, which has led researchers to confirm that in his last phase, Petrescu produced sound cartoons.
Jean Mihail also entered the turbulent milieu called the cinema at this time. He was one of the pioneers of Romanian cinema and began his career through his participation as assistant director under the German Alfred Hallm, director of Ţigăncuşa din iatac (The Little Gypsy Girl in the Bedroom). The film, shot on locations such as Mogoşoaia Palace
, Pasărea Monastery, and Minovici Vila, was based on a script by Victor Beldiman, in turn written after a novel by Radu Rosseti. It was a Spera-Film Berlin
and Rador-Film Bucharest co-production. It starred Dorina Heller, Elvira Popescu, Ion Iancovescu, Mitzi Vecera, Tantzi Elvas, Ecaterina Vigny, Leon Lefter, Petre Sturdza, Petrescu Muscă and premiered on 30 December 1923. Sadly, the film is lost today.
The lack of a steady supply of financial resources was the constant obsession permanently plaguing Romanian film directors. The absence of a "Leon Popescu", a wealthy man ready to invest his earnings in film production, caused directors and the few actors passionate about the new art to seek financiers who were equally passionate and disinterested. This is how the young actor-director Jean Georgescu found a retiree in the year 1925 who, for more or less artistic reasons, invested his savings in the production of a film called Năbădăile Cleopatrei (Cleopatra's Caprices). Ion Şahighian made his directing debut on this film, which starred Jean Georgescu, Ion Finteşteanu, A. Pop Marţian, Alexandru Giugaru
, N. Soreanu, Brânduşa Grozăvescu and others. It premiered on 5 October 1925 at the Lux theatre. In the same fashion, Jean Georgescu produced the film Milionar pentru o zi (Millionaire for a Day) (1925) in a Bucharest cabaret, since the owner wanted to advertise the building.
Jean Mihail directed Lia
(1927), on a screenplay by Mircea Filotti financed by a German businessman who wanted to fulfill the wish of his wife, well-known actress Lilly Flohr. Likewise, he made Povara (The Burden) at Vienna
in 1928 with the money of a lady who wished to see her name listed in the credits as production director.
At the request of a firm that sold coffee, radios, etc., Marcel Blossoms and Micu Kellerman directed the film Lache în harem (1927) (The valet in the harem).
On other occasions, due to lack of money, film enthusiasts would form a cooperative: one would contribute the camera, the other the laboratory, the other the script, the other the direction; the actors were easily obtained due to their desire to see themselves on screen, and finally they had to find a creditor willing to lend them some money on the assurance that it would be returned to him after "the great success of the premiere". This is how there appeared under Jean Mihail's direction Păcat (Sin
) (1924) and Manasse (Manasseh) (1925). The actor Ghiţă Popescu directed Legenda celor două cruci (The Legend of the Two Crosses) (1925), Vitejii neamului (The Bravest of Our People) (1926) and Năpasta (The Calamity) (1927). Jean Georgescu directed Maiorul Mura (Major Mura) (1928), financed by collecting money from friends.
The attraction of the screen and the real desire to make a name for oneself in the new art led to the foundation of several film schools. Students' tuition fees paid for the production of certain films. Of course, the students were unpaid actors, which allowed for widespread distribution. The Clipa-Film studio produced, with this form of financing, the films Iadeş (The Wishbone) (1926), Iancu Jianu
(1927), Haiducii (he Haiduc
s) (1929), Ciocoii (The Boyar
s) (1930) and, later, Insula Şerpilor (Snake Island
) (1934), the penultimate one featuring an attempt at sound, and the last one being a talkie.
On the other hand, a film production society called Soremar, generally specializing in documentaries
and Newsreel
s), produced the 1928 film Simfonia dragostei (The Symphony of Love), directed by Ion Şahighian. With the director Niculescu Brumă they produced the film Ecaterina Teodoroiu (film), in which there appear clips filmed during the First World War of the great personages of the time; the mother of Ecaterina Teodoroiu
appeared as herself. These films were produced in Vienna studios.
Other films from this period include Gogulică C.F.R.
(1929) (unfinished), and Haplea (The Dullard) (animated by Marin Iorda in 1928) - the first Romanian animated film preserved archivally ( A.N.F.).
From a technical point of view, making these films was very difficult. If a film camera could be obtained from newsreel photographers, the print was prepared with them also. The problem of finding a set to use was very difficult, with the director searching for a set among all nearby warehouses, granaries, stables or dance halls. Sometimes filming was done in different apartments or in homes owned by those willing to help. Lights were usually gathered up from photographers' studios. Often, due to overcrowding in residences, films would accidentally display a light or the cameraman and his camera reflected in a mirror or a piece of furniture. The best locations were those offered by various theatres on occasion that work take place at night. Another solution was for them to shoot interiors outdoors. They built their "interiors" on sets exposed to sunlight (thus eliminating artificial lights) and built on a platform that could be rotated and thus make full use of sunlight. The technical crews, in contrast to those found abroad, had to be jacks-of-all-trades, yet ultimately workmen: the cameraman would also prepare the print in the laboratory, the director might be a make-up artist as well, the producer a prop-man, an actor an assistant director. As for distribution, this depended on the actors' willingness to work for free. To all this was added the fact that negatives were scarce, meaning that sequences were filmed in one take only, regardless of the quality of the outcome.
The lack of innovation in the field, due to a lack of materials and sometimes of information, caused these suffering devotees of the new muse to play things by ear, with many films showing weak artistry.
Even if the conditions in which these people worked and created did not allow them to reach a level equal to wider contemporary standards on a technical level, they still managed to record a pretty page in the annals of Romanian film history, despite all the inherent artistic lapses at the beginning.
On the other hand, the intellectuals of the day still considered cinematographic art to be a lowly sideshow, not according it its due importance. It is true that the specialty press was also rather thin on content and sometimes uninspired. In 1928 Tudor Vianu
wrote in the article "The Movie Theatre and the Radio Broadcaster in the Politics of Culture": "The cinematic press [was] created first of all in order to sustain the interests of cinematographic capitalism...There is no actor, no matter how mediocre, not to have been proclaimed a first-rate star by the cinematic press and there is no film, no matter how boring or mundane, not to have been declared an incomparable achievement".
At the end of the 1920s and beginning of the 1930s, cinema entered the consciousness of certain Romanian writers and cultural figures, such as Tudor Vianu, Liviu Rebreanu
, Victor Eftimiu
, Camil Petrescu
and Dimitrie Gusti
, who all became aware of this new mode of expression and culture. As Rebreanu observed in 1930,
In this period the film critic D. I. Suchianu made his debut, first in newspapers, then in 1929 in radio. Later on the critic Ion Filotti Cantacuzino
also started broadcasting.
It is worth noting what the princess-poet Elena Văcărescu
(the princess who would have become Romania's first native-born queen had King Carol I not forcefully intervened to stop her idyll with prince Ferdinand) said in 1930 about the importance of the seventh art: "Having great power at its disposal, the cinema should work hard...toward the greatest good of peoples and what brings them together, that is, toward peace".
s opened a new stage in the development of world cinema, by implication in the weak cinema of Romania as well. The appearance of sound further complicated the tricky problem of the tehnical-material base, both in terms of production and of projection in theatres. Competition from abroad shattered the dreams of Romanian producers, such that the number of films produced after 1930 within the cinema of Romania fell noticeably. Hence, until 1939, just 16 films were produced. The majority were "Romanian versions" of foreign films produced in Paris
, Prague
or Budapest
studios with a few Romanian technicians and some Romanian actors. Practically, they were involved in dubbing
. Among these were the Franco-American film Parada Paramount (Paramount on Parade
), Televiziune (Television
) (both 1931 and dubbed in Paris) (with George Vraca's voice in the second film), Fum (Smoke
) 1931, Trenul fantomă (The Phantom Train) 1933, Prima dragoste (First Love
) and Suflete în furtună (Tempest-tossed Souls) 1934, Hungarian films dubbed in Budapest
.
The German director Martin Berger, who in 1929 had directed the silent film (among the last Romanian silent films) Venea o moară pe Siret
(A Mill Was Coming down the Siret) through an official subsidy, came back and in 1930 directed a film based on the novel by Liviu Rebreanu
with the same name, Ciuleandra (film). This was the first Romanian talking film. The film was an artistic fiasco because the famous German actors provoked laughter through the German accent they had when speaking Romanian. Even the few Romanian actors who appeared in the film spoke strangely, as the German producers, being unused to the cadence of the Romanian language
, imposed a diction of phrases with long pauses. Hence, in one scene, the son climbed down a staircase saying one word on each step: "How... are... you... father?". The reply sounds the same: "Fine... dear..."!
The year 1932 brought the production Visul lui Tănase (Tănase's Dream) to Romanian screens. It was self-produced in Berlin
by Constantin Tănase
. He was the film's financier, screenwriter, and its principal star alongside several good Romanian actors, while the German side provided the studio, direction, technicians, and a troupe of actors.
The great comedians of the inter-war Romanian stage, Stroe and Vasilache, managed, with the help of a Romanian engineer, Argani, who had put together a sound device, to produce the only entirely domestic film of the period, titled Bing-Bang (1934). As film posters noted, it was a "humorous musical" based on a script by Argani, Stroe and Vasilache; with camerawork by I. Bartok; music by N. Stroe and Vasile Vasilache; musical arrangements by Mihai Constantinescu and Max Halm; and starring N. Stroe, Vasile Vasilache, Nora Piacenti, Grigore Vasiliu Birlic
, Titi Botez, C. Calmuschi, Silly Vasiliu, Nutzi Pantazi, Lucica Părvulescu, Richard Rang, Alexandru Brunetti, and Alexandru Giovani. Its premiere took place on 7 February 1935 at the Arpa cinema (inside the Bucharest Cercul Militar).
Enthusiastic Romanian directors, due to lack of funds and disinterest on the part of the ruling authorities, all began to take other paths in their lives. Jean Georgescu left for Paris, where he added sound to his 1934 film, State la Bucureşti (States in Bucharest) in the Gaumont Studio
; the film had originally been made as a silent comedy. Ion Şahighian left cinema for the theatre. Eftimie Vasilescu worked as a newsreel photographer. Only Jean Mihail remained a director based in Romania, though he too had to do work abroad, participating in the dubbing of films at Hunia-Film in Budapest and Barandov in Czechoslovakia
.
During this nadir of Romanian cinema a ray of hope appeared. Politicians, and not only in Romania, realized the great influential power that cinema had as part of the mass media. Cinema could be used for purposes of propaganda, for influencing the masses at large with different levels of culture. (Even Lenin
, realizing the propaganda power of film, said: "Of all the arts, the most important for us is cinema". Hence, film could be used as an important ideological weapon and the Communists needed it in their "great work" of destroying democracies). Furthermore, it had been proven that the tenacious work of Romanian film directors, despite all its imperfections, had been well received by the public, and had begun to prove right those who kept calling for subsidies toward the production of Romanian films.
Thus, at the beginning of 1934, a law was passed establishing a National Cinema Fund. This was funded through a tax of 1 leu per ticket and 10 lei per meter of imported film. Its stated purpose was to create a material base for Romanian film production (studios, laboratories, equipment, etc.) and, as subsequent revenue came in, to finance productions as well. The fund's administration was placed in the hands of a committee formed by Professor Tudor Vianu, Professor Alexandru Rosetti and the writer Ion Marin Sadoveanu
. These taxes provoked strong protests from film importers and movie theatre owners, yet with the authorities not yielding, tempers soon relaxed.
Following the passage of this law, Romanian cinéastes began a flurry of activity, planning all sorts of projects. An entrepreneur brought in a Bell-Howel sound recorder and founded a company called The Romanian Sound Film Industry, commencing with the production of newsreel
s. Together with Jean Mihail he began the production of a documentary film, România (Romania).
Through the contribution of a private entrepreneur, Tudor Posmantir, a laboratory named Ciro-film was built in 1936–1937, equipped with Debrie devices. This was a modern laboratory for developing and copying films, thus assuring that modern work techniques would be used. A "film studio" was also built nearby–this was in fact a large wooden hangar, but rather good for producing films. It was here that Ion Şahighian filmed O noapte de pomină (An Unforgettable Night), from a script by Tudor Muşatescu
, starring George Timică and Dina Cocea
, in 1939. The film found great success with audiences and received a favorable critical reception. Thus it was shown what good technical equipment could do for the industry.
Through various governments' decisions, the National Cinema Fund was placed within the Tourism Office, where a cinema section had been established for creating travelogues. The material base created was that initially stated as the project's goal and indeed of good quality. The film cameras were of the newsreel type, with portable sound equipment set up in an automobile; work was soon finished on a sound recording room for documentaries, with minimal artificial lights in the studio. This all disappointed the creators of artistic films, as they lacked suitable sets for filming.
Also in this period at the end of the 1930s, Oficiul Naţional Cinematografic (O.N.C., the National Cinematographic Office) was formed, headed by the film critic D. I. Suchianu. In the beginning the office worked on a periodic newsreel program and on documentary production. Construction was also begun on a studio and completed with difficulty due to the start of World War II
. The O.N.C. produced the documentary Ţara Moţilor (Moţilor Land), which received a prize at the 1938 Venice Film Festival
. The film was directed by Paul Călinescu
and marked the entry of the Romanian documentary into the realm of cinematic art ( A.N.F., the second). During the war, the O.N.C. was placed at the disposal of the Army General Staff, the majority of cameramen being sent to the front, and technicians being employed exclusively for the needs of wartime propaganda.
Despite all these difficulties, the film O noapte furtunoasă (A Stormy Night) was completed between 1941 and 1942 in the O.N.C. "studio". Producing the film under wartime conditions was a labor fit for Sisyphus
, equally for the actors, cameraman, stage electricians, script-girl, stage designers and prop handlers. All the exteriors had to be constructed in the small 18x11 m studio, intended for music recording, since exterior shooting at night was impossible due to the need to maintain camouflage. For panoramic or travelling shots, two or three scenes had to be shot on a stage that had to be decorated two or three times over, and then combined in order to constitute a whole shot. The way this worked in practice was that once a scene was filmed, the set was taken down and the next design thrown up. Only one thing was not lacking for them: photographic material. In the end, 29,000 m were shot. The film O noapte furtunoasă was directed by Jean Georgescu, based on the eponymous comedy by Ion Luca Caragiale
; the assistant directors were Ionel Iliescu, Virgil Stoenescu, I. Marinescu, and P. Băleanu; the cameraman was Gerard Perrin (from Paris); the sound engineers were A. Bielisici, V. Cantunari, and G. Mărăi; editing was done by Ivonne Herault (from Paris) and Lucia Anton; makeup by the Sturh couple (of Berlin); choreography by Emil Bobescu; music by Paul Constantinescu
; set design by Ştefan Norris; storyboards and costumes by Aurel Jiquidi; and production direction by Ion Cantacuzino
. The film starred Alexandru Giugaru
, Maria Maximilian, Florica Demion, Radu Beligan
, Iordănescu Bruno, George Demetru, Ion Baroi, George Ciprian
, Miluţă Ghiorghiu, Leontina Ioanid, Doina Missir, Iuliana Sym, Cornelia Teodosiu, Elena Bulandra, Vasiliu Falti, Lică Rădulescu, Ion Stănescu, Nicolae Teodoru, O. Rocos, Iancu Constantinescu and Jean Moscopol. It premiered on 22 March 1943 at the ARO theatre. This was the first and last film produced by the O.N.C.; for many years it remained a point of reference in the annals of cinematic art in Romania.
Film production nevertheless continued. In 1944, a Romanian-Italian company, Cineromit, assigned the production of the film Visul unei nopţi de iarnă (A Winter Night's Dream) to director Jean Georgescu; the script was from the play by Tudor Muşatescu
. The film was finished only near the end of the year 1945 due to the events of the war. For the most part, the technical crew was that of O noapte furtunoasă, plus the French cameraman Louis Behrend. The actors were George Demetru, Ana Colda, Maria Filotti, Mişu Fotino and Radu Beligan. It premiered on 2 March 1946 at the Excelsior cinema.
There followed in rapid succession several productions completed in cooperaration with Danish and Hungarian studios by Balcan-Film Company Bucharest. Of note were "Allo Bucureşti" (Hello Bucharest), "Furtul din Arizona" (The Arizona Theft) and "Două lumi şi o dragoste" (Two Worlds and One Love), all made in 1946.
Also important was the 1946, production Pădurea îndrăgostiţilor (The Lovers' Forest), produced at Doina-Film, on which the O.N.C. technical crew worked, with the director and cameraman being Cornel Dumitrescu.
This can also be called the period of socialist cinema. Following "the teaching of the great Lenin
, the ideologue of the social formation of the proletarian class", who showed that "of all the arts, the most important for us is cinema", however, not as an art but as an instrument of ideological influence, the newly installed regime fully subsidised the production of films which, as a necessity, as an imperative, openly disseminated propaganda.
In an era in which "not being with us means being against us", films had to actively strive to show the realities of the new society. Socialist films had to reflect the struggle of the "new man" against the "old retrograde society, a society in which man exploited his fellow man, full of capitalists and men of inherited wealth who sucked the blood of the working classes". Many films had as their theme the attempts of the retrograde bourgeois-landed gentry class to render futile the new objectives of victorious socialism through their stooges; but these efforts would fail because the Romanian Workers' (later Communist) Party
, through its activists, would inspire, depending on the situation, workers or peasants toward victory. The same themes were found in documentaries
and newsreel
s. Everything in these productions was "gilt" with the "glorious achievements of the working class allied with the working peasantry".
Also notable is the fact that the choice of actors for such productions was not random. Fat actors, especially those with a paunch, were chosen to play the landed gentry, while poor peasants were played by those actors who were thin yet possessed a piercing gaze and a determined gait; those who played party activists had to have the look of a workman, be muscular, and have an intelligent facial expression. The choice of actors was very important in sketching out the characters that they would play.
Unequivocally, the cinematic art of the period can be said to have been, in fact, an illustration of the era's ideology. Films had to unmask, to be hymns for a new life, to plead for some Party objective, to sound an alarm, or to show the glorious past of the working class's struggle or that of the working peasantry.
So as to have cadres ready to fill the necessary positions in the industry, Institutul de artă cinematografică (The Institute of Cinematographic Art") was founded, with a mission of preparing the new cadres needed for the new cinema: actors, directors and cameramen. It was from here that the "golden generation" not only of Romanian film but also of the national theatre graduated: the actors Silvia Popovici, Iurie Darie
, Florin Piersic
, Constantin Diplan, Amza Pellea
, Dem Rădulescu
, Stela Popescu, Sebastian Papaiani, Leopoldina Bălănuţă
and Draga Olteanu, along with directors like Manole Marcus, Geo Saizescu, Iulian Mihu, Gheorghe Vitanidis
, and many others.
Romania now had a national cinema after a period when the old regime had not really invested anything in the new art. The socialist authorities, through the investments made, wanted to show the whole world and at the same time to prove how much it cared about the new art, "the seventh art", as the cultural commisars of film work said with pride–men who were also called "gum-flappers" by the new professionals who made films out of passion for the art. These commisars were people who, 90% of the time, had no connection not only with the cinema, but also with culture; people who did not even have a middling amount of preparation, who came from all sorts of unrelated fields and who themselves in discussions labelled film as "a pipe dream". At least in the distribution networks, the directors of the cinematographic enterprises, at first regional, then county
-wide, were activists who at a certain point in time were determined no longer to be able to carry out the "exigent demands" of Party work. Still, the real purpose for which these cadres were put into place is that suggested above. Here too there were exceptions, exceptions which were beneficial to the act of film distribution. Even if when they entered the industry they had nothing in common with the cinema, the wonderful world of the screen fascinated them, changed their conception about film and allowed them to make beneficial contributions to the industry later on. They lobbied for funds to replace the technically obsolete film equipment; they changed the appearance of movie theatres, installing elegant padded seats in place of the earlier wooden ones; they acquired ventilation systems and many other things conducive to a quality film-going experience.
At the time of nationalization, the technical-material base of film production consisted of:
This fact led the leading Party and state institutions to decide to found a center for film production. In 1950, construction began at Buftea
on what would come to be called Centrul de producţie cinematografică Buftea (The Buftea Studio), also known as C.P.C. Buftea (today MediaPro Studios
). The project was finished in 1959. Technically speaking, C.P.C. Buftea rivalled any Western European film studio.
In this period a series of films was produced at the Floreasca Complex, which, since 1956, had been taken over by Televiziunea Română (Romanian Television). This studio was much bigger than that used at the time of nationalization (600 m²); it had a recording room, further technical installations in annexes, and a laboratory for the preparation of 35 mm prints both in black and white and color (Orwo color). Another studio of about 320 m² (383 sq yd) was built inside the Tomis cinema.
For the production of technical supplies needed both by studios and film distributors, Intreprinderea de Stat Tehnocin (The Tehnocin State Enterprise) was founded in 1950 and in 1959 merged with Industria Optică Română (The Romanian Optics Industry). Movie projector
s for 35 mm and 16 mm film were produced, as were sound systems for movie theatres, reflecting lenses, dollies
, and artificial studio lights.
Likewise, so that there would be technical cadres well-prepared to work in studios and in the operation of movie projectors, professional schools for projectionists were founded at Craiova
and Târgu-Mureş
, while at Bucharest
, a "technical school for technical personnel" was opened, intended to prepare movie theatre operators and studio managers.
Earlier, mention was made of documentaries
and newsreel
s being as necessary as fiction films for Communist propaganda. For this purpose the Alex Sahia Studio was founded in 1950, equipped with the best materials then available on the market: Arriflex reporters' cameras, Klang, Perfectone and Negra portable and fixed sound recording devices, Prevost editing tables, and other items. From 1954 another type of documentary began to be produced: popular science films
.
If, until 1948, the production of animated films
was virtually non-existent, after this year many such films began to be produced at the Bucharest Studio, with a total of 15 films in 1955. Particularly notable was the contribution of Ion Popescu-Gopo
, father of the little man
who, appearing in Scurtă istorie (A Short History) in 1957, won him a Palme d'Or
for Best Short Film at Cannes
that year. The success of Romania's animated films convinced the authorities to found the Animafilm studio in 1964. Here, "diafilms", slides for teaching use, were also produced, as were television commercials.
As far as the distribution of films is concerned, after the nationalization of movie theatres (only 35 mm ones, as 16 mm theatres did not exist), it was concluded that many had to be shut down because of their decaying state or because of their physically obsolete equipment. A crisis followed, there being a shortage of theatre administrators and projectionists that forced films in some counties to be shown only outdoors. This situation caused the Committee for Cinematography to be formed on 7 June 1950 alongside the Council of Ministers, and inside this institution the Film Distribution Network Directorate was established. Later, this office ran the County-level Cinematographic State Enterprises when they were established. The importance of these led to the allocation of funds necessary for the film distribution network to be developed. Implicitly, movie theatres and the establishment of 16 mm cinemas in rural areas were also a goal–together, these objectives were known as cineficare ("filmification", analogous to electrification). In the 1950s 1000 16 mm projectors and 100 film caravans (mobile theatres) were imported from the Soviet Union
in order to promote the introduction of film into the rural environment. Reorganizations also took place in the next few years. Thus, in July 1952, Direcţia Difuzării Filmelor (D.D.F.) (The Film Screening Directorate) was founded. In 1956 this was merged with the Film Distribution Network Directorate to form Direcţia Reţelei Cinematografice şi a Difuzării Filmelor (D.R.C.D.F) (The Film Distribution and Screening Directorate), under the guidance of the Ministry of Culture. The purpose of this institution was to promote a single policy regarding Romania's movie theatres, "the control and guidance of political-ideological work with the cinema, the showing of films based on the political-technical demands of the various stages of the construction of socialism", as well as to craft the economical-financial plan to be fulfilled.
The reorganizations continued, so that in 1971 Centrala România-Film (Romania-Film Central) was founded, having under its authority C.P.C. Buftea, the financing of film production through five studios, import-export and the screening of films.
Although the technical vagaries of the industry at this time have nothing to do with the cinema of Romania as an art, it is also useful to recall how distribution into movie theatres took place. Romanian film production, such as it was in 1948, was practically non-existent. The timid beginnings of Romanian film production were started by director Puiu Călinescu with the film Răsună Valea (The Valley Resounds), with a theme similar to those discussed above. But, for such a "rich national production", other films were needed in the screening repertoire. Hence, the focus was on importing films also produced in countries that had started down the path of constructing socialism. Many of them also had "rich productions" and so everyone in the Eastern Bloc's orientation was toward "the country with the best and most educational cinema in the world, the USSR
". From here films with a "high ideological content" were imported and shown in Romania.
Of course, not all films on Romanian screens were of this type. Even domestically, besides propaganda films, directors made films which, without renouncing "educational" values, also numbered among them diversionary films, cloak and sword epics, and adaptations of Russian literature. Films were even imported from "other countries", that is, from capitalist ones. Of course, the importation of these films was done in a very rigorous manner with regard to themes. However, the cinephile public was not denied a chance to see some of the great works of world cinema, including works of Italian neorealism
and its successors (Rome, open city
, Bicycle Thieves
, and Rocco e i suoi fratelli
), Judgment at Nuremberg
, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
, In the Heat of the Night, a series of Westerns
, Gone with the Wind
(USA
), and many others from France
, the United Kingdom
, Spain
, Mexico
, Japan
and China
.
Once the number of films (some of which had a weak commercial content but a high political-ideological component and were avoided by the public) produced by Romanian studios rose, and import taxes were lowered, the quality of films shown, in particular that of art films, suffered. At one point 40% of films shown were Romanian and 60% foreign, including those from other Warsaw Pact
nations. Many times even these were hostile to ceauşist
propaganda (one could no longer speak of "Communist" propaganda), as was Malenkaya Vera, which already displayed the effects of perestroika
.
section parallel to the Cannes Film Festival
with Cristi Puiu
's first feature film Stuff and Dough (aka Marfa şi banii) and Cristian Mungiu's Occident
, respectively.
In 2005, Puiu's second feature, The Death of Mr. Lăzărescu
, a journey through the Romanian health care system, competed in the un certain regard category of the Cannes Film Festival
and won the prize "Un certain regard". It thereafter won many more prizes around the world, becoming the most awarded Romanian film ever made. American critics, previously rarely interested in Romanian cinema, were especially enthusiastic about the film; 93 percent of reviews it received were categorized by Rotten Tomatoes
as positive.
At the 2006 Cannes Film Festival
, Romanian director Corneliu Porumboiu
won the Camera d'Or best-first-feature award for 12:08 East of Bucharest
(aka A fost sau n-a fost?) and Cătălin Mitulescu
(The Way I Spent the End of the World) competed in the Un Certain Regard section. In 2007, Cristian Nemescu
's posthumous California Dreamin' won the prize in the Un Certain Regard section, while Mungiu's 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
received the Palme d'Or
in the Cannes film festival - the first time a Romanian filmmaker won that prize. At the 2008 Cannes Film Festival
Marian Crişan's Megatron (film) won the Palme d'Or for short film.
In 2009 Katalin Varga
with British film director Peter Strickland won the New Talent Pix Award on the CPH:Pix
film festival.
In 2010, If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle
(aka Eu când vreau să fluier, fluier) directed by Florin Şerban
won the Jury Grand Prix
Silver Bear. The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu by director Andrei Ujica
, which tells the story of the former dictator based on 1000 hours footage from his own television archives, was shown Out of Competition at Cannes in 2010.
Romania has also been chosen by foreign filmmakers as a location for filming scenes, such as Cold Mountain
, the "Kazakh" village in Sacha Baron Cohen
's Borat, the French film Transylvania
or the 2004 American horror film Gargoyle: Wings of Darkness, to name just a few.
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
or by Romanian
Romanians
The Romanians are an ethnic group native to Romania, who speak Romanian; they are the majority inhabitants of Romania....
filmmakers abroad.
As upon much of the world's early cinema, the ravages of time have left their mark upon Romanian film prints. Tens of titles have been destroyed or lost for good. From these films, only memories, articles and photos published in the newspapers of the time have remained. Since 1965 Arhiva Naţională de Filme (A.N.F.) (The National Film Archive) has made serious efforts to reconstruct the obscure history of the beginnings of Romanian
Romanians
The Romanians are an ethnic group native to Romania, who speak Romanian; they are the majority inhabitants of Romania....
cinema, in parallel with the publication of memoirs and private research undertaken by great lovers of cinema, such as film critics Ion Cantacuzino
Ion Filotti Cantacuzino
Ion Filotti Cantacuzino or Ion I. Cantacuzino was a Romanian film producer, film producer, writer and psychiatrist.-Biographic data:...
and Tudor Caranfil, together with the directors Jean Mihail and Jean Georgescu.
Romanian films have won Best Short film at Cannes
Cannes
Cannes is one of the best-known cities of the French Riviera, a busy tourist destination and host of the annual Cannes Film Festival. It is a Commune of France in the Alpes-Maritimes department....
in 2004 and 2008, with Trafic, and Megatron.
Romanian
Romanians
The Romanians are an ethnic group native to Romania, who speak Romanian; they are the majority inhabitants of Romania....
cinema achieved prominence in the 2000s with the appearance of such films as The Death of Mr. Lazarescu
The Death of Mr. Lazarescu
The Death of Mr. Lazarescu is a 2005 Romanian dark comedy film by director Cristi Puiu. In the film an old man is carried by an ambulance from hospital to hospital all night long, as doctors keep refusing to treat him and send him away....
, directed by Cristi Puiu
Cristi Puiu
Cristi Puiu is a Romanian film director and screenwriter.Puiu's first interest in art was painting and in 1992, he was admitted as a student at the Painting Department of Ecole Superieure d'Arts Visuels in Geneva. After the first year he switched to film studies at the same school and graduated in...
, (Cannes 2005
2005 Cannes Film Festival
The 2005 Cannes Film Festival started on May 11 and ran until May 22. Twenty movies from 13 countries were selected to compete. The awards were announced on May 21...
Prix un certain regard winner), and 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days is a 2007 Romanian film written and directed by Cristian Mungiu. It won the Palme d'Or and the FIPRESCI Award at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival....
, directed by Cristian Mungiu (Cannes 2007
2007 Cannes Film Festival
The 2007 Cannes Film Festival, the sixtieth, ran from 16 to 27 May 2007. Wong Kar-wai's My Blueberry Nights opened the festival, and Denys Arcand's The Age of Ignorance closed...
Palme d'Or
Palme d'Or
The Palme d'Or is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival and is presented to the director of the best feature film of the official competition. It was introduced in 1955 by the organising committee. From 1939 to 1954, the highest prize was the Grand Prix du Festival International du...
winner). The latter, according to Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
, is "further proof of Romania's new prominence in the film world."
Beginnings
The history of cinema in Romania started before 1900, pushed by film screenings which helped arouse public curiosity towards the new invention and enthusiastic cameramen began making films out of passion for the newly discovered art. Due to the rudimentary technical conditions, the early films were actualitiesDocumentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
, very short (many less than one minute) one-shot scenes capturing moments of everyday life.
The first cinematographic projection in Romania took place on 27 May 1896, less than five months after the first public film exhibition by the Lumière brothers
Auguste and Louis Lumière
The Lumière brothers, Auguste Marie Louis Nicolas and Louis Jean , were among the earliest filmmakers in history...
on 28 December 1895 in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. In the Romanian exhibition, a team of Lumière brothers' employees screened several films, including the famous L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat
L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de la Ciotat
L'arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat is an 1895 French short black-and-white silent documentary film directed...
. The event was arranged by Edwin Schurmann, the impressario of Adelina Patti
Adelina Patti
Adelina Patti was a highly acclaimed 19th-century opera singer, earning huge fees at the height of her career in the music capitals of Europe and America. She first sang in public as a child in 1851 and gave her last performance before an audience in 1914...
and Eleonora Duse
Eleonora Duse
-Life and career:Duse was born in Vigevano, Lombardy, and began acting as a child. Both her father and her grandfather were actors, and she joined the troupe at age four. Due to poverty, she initially worked continually, traveling from city to city with whichever troupe her family was currently...
, and was hosted by the French-language newspaper L'Indépendance Roumanie. Mişu Văcărescu (descendant of the boyar
Boyar
A boyar, or bolyar , was a member of the highest rank of the feudal Moscovian, Kievan Rus'ian, Bulgarian, Wallachian, and Moldavian aristocracies, second only to the ruling princes , from the 10th century through the 17th century....
Văcărescu family
Vacarescu family
The Văcărescu family was a boyar family of Wallachia .According to tradition it is one of the oldest noble families in Wallachia.* Enache Văcărescu grand treasurer of Wallachia...
), a journalist for L'Indépendance Roumanie, noted that "there took place a representation of 'the miracle of the century'". Initially an elite attraction, permanent screenings both in the building of L'Indépendance Roumanie and in other locations (such as the biggest room of the newspaper building on Eforiei Spitalelor Civile Boulevard, then the Hugues room across from the old National Theatre) helped bring the ticket price down and cinema became a popular spectacle in Bucharest.
The next year, in 1897, the French cameraman Paul Menu (an employee of the Lumière brothers) shot the first film set in Romania, The Royal parade on 10 May 1897, showing King Carol I
Carol I of Romania
Carol I , born Prince Karl of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen was reigning prince and then King of Romania from 1866 to 1914. He was elected prince of Romania on 20 April 1866 following the overthrow of Alexandru Ioan Cuza by a palace coup...
mounted, taking his place on the boulevard to head the parade (A.N.F.). He continued by filming other 16 news items over the following two months, but only two survive today as nr. 551 and 552 in the Lumière catalogue. Menu's first Romanian films were presented on 8 June/23 June 1897, including images of the floods at Galaţi
Galati
Galați is a city and municipality in Romania, the capital of Galați County. Located in the historical region of Moldavia, in the close vicinity of Brăila, Galați is the largest port and sea port on the Danube River and the second largest Romanian port....
, Romanian Navy vessels on the Danube
Danube
The Danube is a river in the Central Europe and the Europe's second longest river after the Volga. It is classified as an international waterway....
, and scenes from the Băneasa Hippodrome.
However, by 1898 public interest in cinema started fading, so Paul Menu offered his camera for sale ("L'Indépendance Roumaine", 16 March 1898). The camera was bought by doctor Gheorghe Marinescu
Gheorghe Marinescu
Gheorghe Marinescu was a Romanian neurologist, founder of the Romanian School of Neurology.After the attendance of Medicine at the Bucharest University, Marinescu received most of his medical education as preparator at the laboratory of histology at the Brâncoveanu Hospital and as assistant at...
who became the first Romanian filmmaker, realizing a series of short medically-themed films between 1898 and 1899. Gheorghe Marinescu
Gheorghe Marinescu
Gheorghe Marinescu was a Romanian neurologist, founder of the Romanian School of Neurology.After the attendance of Medicine at the Bucharest University, Marinescu received most of his medical education as preparator at the laboratory of histology at the Brâncoveanu Hospital and as assistant at...
, together with cameraman Constantin M. Popescu, made in 1898 the first scientific film in the world, Walking difficulties in organic hemiplegia
Hemiplegia
Hemiplegia /he.mə.pliː.dʒiə/ is total paralysis of the arm, leg, and trunk on the same side of the body. Hemiplegia is more severe than hemiparesis, wherein one half of the body has less marked weakness....
. In a letter to doctor Marinescu from 29 July 1924, speaking about these films, Auguste Lumière acknowledges that "unfortunately, few scientists followed the path you opened". His films were considered lost until 1975, when a TV reporter named Cornel Rusu discovered them in a metal cabinet in a hospital bearing the famous doctor's name. (A.N.F.)
Starting in 1906, in Macedonia
Macedonia (Greece)
Macedonia is a geographical and historical region of Greece in Southern Europe. Macedonia is the largest and second most populous Greek region...
, the Aromanian Manakia brothers made a career with their social and ethnographic themed actualities (A.N.F.).
Film screenings resumed in Bucharest
Bucharest
Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....
in 1905 at various locations, as the Edison, the Eforie, the Lyric Theatre, and Circul Sidoli. In May 1909, the first theater in Romania built especially for exhibiting films, Volta, was opened on Doamnei Street in Bucharest
Bucharest
Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....
. Transylvania
Transylvania
Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...
, then part of Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...
, had already had its first movie theatre in Braşov
Brasov
Brașov is a city in Romania and the capital of Brașov County.According to the last Romanian census, from 2002, there were 284,596 people living within the city of Brașov, making it the 8th most populated city in Romania....
since 1901. Volta was followed starting with the next year by others, such as Bleriot on Sărindar Street, Bristol, Apollo and Venus. The programs consisted of actualities
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
and short "little films with actors" (for example, a five minute shot of Victor Eftimiu
Victor Eftimiu
Victor Eftimiu was an Albanian-Romanian poet, playwright, and a contributor to Sburătorul, a Romanian literary magazine. His works have been performed in the State Jewish Theater of Romania....
and Aristizza Romanescu during a stately walk on the seashore). The films gradually increased in running time, eventually developing into newsreels
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
and fiction films.
Fictional Romanian Silent Films (1911–1930)
The first Romanian fiction films are wrapped in an aura of legend.An investigation regarding the beginnings of Romanian cinema, published in an insert of the newspaper "Cuvântul
Cuvântul
Cuvântul is a newspaper from Rezina, the Republic of Moldova, founded in 1995 by Tudor Iaşcenco.- External links :*...
" (The Word) in December 1933, mentions that in 1911 an "arrangement of a play for the cinema", Păpuşa (The Doll
The Doll
"The Doll" is the 127th episode of NBC sitcom Seinfeld. This was the 17th episode for the 7th season. It aired on February 22, 1996.-Production:...
), was produced by the cameramen Nicolae Barbelian and Demichelli in collaboration with the head of the actors' troupe, Marinescu. At the same time, Victor Eftimiu
Victor Eftimiu
Victor Eftimiu was an Albanian-Romanian poet, playwright, and a contributor to Sburătorul, a Romanian literary magazine. His works have been performed in the State Jewish Theater of Romania....
, in collaboration with Emil Gârleanu, wrote a film script which they offered for free to a certain Georgescu. The resultant film, called Dragoste la mănăstire (Love in a Monastery) or Două altare (Two Altars) and shown only in 1914, played for just eight days. This was despite the fact that the film was composed merely of shots taken during two rehearsals for the role, attended by Tony Bulandra and Marioara Voiculescu, the rest of the film being taken up by intertitles and long letters.
The first Romanian fiction film was Amor fatal (Fatal Love Affair), starring Lucia Sturdza, Tony Bulandra and Aurel Barbelian, actors from the National Theatre Bucharest
National Theatre Bucharest
The National Theatre Bucharest is one of the national theatres of Romania, located in the capital city of Bucharest.-Founding:It was founded as the Teatrul cel Mare din Bucureşti in 1852, its first director being Costache Caragiale...
. The film was directed by Grigore Brezeanu, a director from the same theatre and the son of the great actor Ion Brezeanu. The film played between 26 and 30 September 1911 at the Apollo Cinema.
On 7 November 1911, the film Înşirăte mărgărite... (Spread Yourselves, Daisies) premiered. It was based on Victor Eftimiu
Victor Eftimiu
Victor Eftimiu was an Albanian-Romanian poet, playwright, and a contributor to Sburătorul, a Romanian literary magazine. His works have been performed in the State Jewish Theater of Romania....
's poem, and in fact showed scenes filmed in different locations in the country for the completion of the play with the same name that was playing at the National Theatre Bucharest
National Theatre Bucharest
The National Theatre Bucharest is one of the national theatres of Romania, located in the capital city of Bucharest.-Founding:It was founded as the Teatrul cel Mare din Bucureşti in 1852, its first director being Costache Caragiale...
; it was what today would be called a magic lantern
Magic lantern
The magic lantern or Laterna Magica is an early type of image projector developed in the 17th century.-Operation:The magic lantern has a concave mirror in front of a light source that gathers light and projects it through a slide with an image scanned onto it. The light rays cross an aperture , and...
show. Aristide Demetriade and Grigore Brezeanu directed. Aristide Demetriade appeared in the role of Făt-Frumos
Fat-Frumos
Făt-Frumos is a knight hero in Romanian folklore, usually present in fairy tales....
. This film/theatre hybrid was well-received by spectators of the day.
In December 1911, the theatrical magazine Rampa published a note under the heading The Cinema in the Theatre (signed by V. Scânteie) indicating that "The Maestro Nottara is in the course of making a patriotic work re-creating the Romanian War of Independence on film, so that today's generations might learn the story of the battles of 1877, and for future generations a live tableau of Romanian bravery will remain".
As a result, the director of the Bucharest
Bucharest
Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....
branch of the Gaumont-Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
studio, Raymond Pellerin, announced the premiere of his film Războiul din 1877-1878 (The 1877-1878 War), scheduled for 29 December 1911. A "film" made in haste, with a troupe of second-hand actors and with the help of General Constantinescu, who commanded a division at Piteşti
Pitesti
Pitești is a city in Romania, located on the Argeș River. The capital and largest city of Argeș County, it is an important commercial and industrial center, as well as the home of two universities. Pitești is situated on the A1 freeway connecting it directly to the national capital Bucharest,...
, from whom he had obtained the extras needed for the war scenes, "Războiul din 1877-1878" was screened a day before by the prefect of the capital's police, who decided that it did not correspond with historic fact. Consequently, the film was confiscated and destroyed, Raymond Pellerin was declared persona non grata and he left for Paris, while the "collaborationist" general saw himself moved to another garrison as a means of discipline.
On 5 May 1912, the magazine Flacăra (The Flame) brought to its readers' attention the fact that "as it is known, a few artists have founded a society with the goal of producing a film about the War of Independence
Romanian War of Independence
The Romanian War of Independence is the name used in Romanian historiography to refer to the 1877-1878 Russo-Turkish war, following which Romania, fighting on the Russian side, gained independence from the Ottoman Empire...
... Such an undertaking deserves to be applauded". The initiators were a group of actors: Constantin Nottara, Aristide Demetriade, V. Toneanu, Ion Brezeanu, N. Soreanu, P. Liciu, as well as the young Grigore Brezeanu, associate producer and the creative force behind the whole operation. Since a large amount of money was needed for the production, they also brought into this effort Leon Popescu, a wealthy man and owner of the Lyric Theatre. The group received strong backing from government authorities, with the army and all necessary equipment being placed at its disposal, plus military advisers (possibly including Pascal Vidraşcu). The cameras and their operators were brought from abroad, and the print was prepared in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
ian laboratories. Could Grigore Brezeanu have been the film's director? No source from that time gives credence to such a hypothesis. On the contrary, they present him as "initiator", producer of the film, beside members of the National Theatre and Leon Popescu. Furthermore, it appears that it was he who attracted the financier of the entire undertaking. In 1985, the film critic Tudor Caranfil discovered among Aristide Demetriade's papers his director's notebooks for Independenţa României, unequivocally confirming that he was the film's director. Thus, the film's production crew was as follows: Producers: Leon Popescu, Aristide Demetriade, Grigore Brezeanu, Constantin Nottara, Pascal Vidraşcu. Screenwriters: Petre Liciu, Constantin Nottara, Aristide Demetriade, Corneliu Moldoveanu. Director: Aristide Demetriade. Cinematographer: Franck Daniau. Makeup and hairstylist: Pepi Machauer (see a clip here: A.N.F.).
On 2 September 1912, at the Eforie cinema, the largest movie theatre in Bucharest
Bucharest
Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....
, the premiere of Independenţa României
Independenta României
Independenţa României, subtitled The Romanian-Russo-Turkish War 1877, is a Romanian 1912 silent film directed by Aristide Demetriade.-Beginnings:...
took place. Despite all its shortcomings as the theatrical game of the actors, the errors of an army of extras uncontrolled by direction which provoked unintended laughter in some scenes and rendered dramatically limp those of the beginning, the film was well received by spectators, being shown for several weeks. Through this realization, through the dimensions of its theme, through the distribution method chosen, through the genuine artistic intentions, through its professional editing (for the time), the creation of this film can be considered Romania's first step in the art of cinematography.
And yet he who had realized this work, the man who kept the whole team together, the theatre director Grigore Brezeanu, was left disappointed. The press of the time made ostentatious mention of Leon Popescu, who financed the film and made sure to distance the other financiers, buying their part; no such praise was heaped on the artistic makers of the film. This caused producer Grigore Brezeanu to say in an interview given to the magazine "Rampa" and published on 13 April 1913: "My dream would have been to build a large film studio. I have come to believe that this is impossible. First of all, we are missing a large capital investment. Without money we cannot rival the foreign studios...A studio, according to our financiers, is something outside art, something in the realm of agriculture or the C.F.R.
Caile Ferate Române
Căile Ferate Române is the official designation of the state railway carrier of Romania. Romania has a railway network of of which are electrified and the total track length is . The network is significantly interconnected with other European railway networks, providing pan-European passenger...
Hence I have abandoned this dream with great regret."
But Leon Popescu — after the appearance of certain products allegedly of the Romanian cinema, filmed by the Pathe-Frères
Pathé
Pathé or Pathé Frères is the name of various French businesses founded and originally run by the Pathé Brothers of France.-History:...
studio and featuring second-hand actors; in fact, these were a mixture of foreign films with scenes shot in which Romanian actors appeared (they were presented on the stages of movie theatres, in the form of theatre productions played by actors "in flesh and blood" coupled with filmed scenes of the same actors), known as "cinemasketches" — responded with a wide-ranging offensive plan, forming the Film de artă Leon Popescu (Leon Popescu Art Film) society in 1913.
Collaborating with the troupe of Marioara Voiculescu, which included actors sympathetic to Popescu (C. Radovici, Ion Manolescu and G. Storin), they managed to put on the market the following films: Amorul unei prinţese (The Love Affair of a Princess) (1913), Răzbunarea (Revenge
Revenge
Revenge is a harmful action against a person or group in response to a grievance, be it real or perceived. It is also called payback, retribution, retaliation or vengeance; it may be characterized, justly or unjustly, as a form of justice.-Function in society:Some societies believe that the...
) (1913), Urgia cerească (The Sky-borne Disaster) (1913), Cetatea Neamţului (The German's Citadel) (1914), Spionul (The Spy
The Spy
The Spy can refer to *The Spy: A Tale of the Neutral Ground, an 1821 novel by James Fenimore Cooper*The Spy, a 1914 film adaptation of the Cooper novel by director Otis Turner*The Spy, a 2010 novel by Clive Cussler...
) (1914), with all but the penultimate proving to be well below expectations.
Notably, in 1913, there appeared another Romanian film, Oţelul răzbună (Steel Takes Its Revenge), directed by Aristide Demetriade - who that same year directed another film: Scheci cu Jack Bill (Sketch with Jack Bill). The film was financed by the director, with substantial help from Professor Gheorghe Arion (8,000 lei
Romanian leu
The leu is the currency of Romania. It is subdivided into 100 bani . The name of the currency means "lion". On 1 July 2005, Romania underwent a currency reform, switching from the previous leu to a new leu . 1 RON is equal to 10,000 ROL...
). The 40-minute film received favorable reviews and enjoyed great success. Today only one reel remains at the A.N.F., taking up a minute of projection time; happily, all the actors can be seen in close-up. The film's producer was Gheorghe Arion; its director and editor was Aristide Demetriade; Franck Daniau was the cinematographer, and it starred Aristide Demetriade, Andrei Popovici, Mărioara Cinsky, Ţacovici-Cosmin, Nicolae Grigorescu
Nicolae Grigorescu
Nicolae Grigorescu was one of the founders of modern Romanian painting.-Biography:He was born in Pitaru, Dâmboviţa County, Wallachia. In 1843 the family moved to Bucharest. At a young age , he became an apprentice at the workshop of the painter Anton Chladek and created icons for the church of...
, Petre Bulandra and Romald Bulfinsky.
At the end of 1914, the Leon Popescu Society merged with the Cipeto society with the aim of importing small-sized projectors and at the same time of renting films produced by the Marioara Voiculescu company to third parties.
During the First World War
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, film production was mainly directed toward documentaries and newsreels. The few Romanian cameramen were mobilized, and during the retreat to Moldova all film cameras in the country were saved. His Majesty Ferdinand I
Ferdinand I of Romania
Ferdinand was the King of Romania from 10 October 1914 until his death.-Early life:Born in Sigmaringen in southwestern Germany, the Roman Catholic Prince Ferdinand Viktor Albert Meinrad of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, later simply of Hohenzollern, was a son of Leopold, Prince of...
was filmed on the front, together with the generals Constantin Prezan
Constantin Prezan
Constantin Prezan was a Romanian general during World War I and after the war a Marshal of Romania....
and Alexandru Averescu
Alexandru Averescu
Alexandru Averescu was a Romanian marshal and populist politician. A Romanian Armed Forces Commander during World War I, he served as Prime Minister of three separate cabinets . He first rose to prominence during the peasant's revolt of 1907, which he helped repress in violence...
, while Queen Marie
Marie of Edinburgh
Marie of Romania was Queen consort of Romania from 1914 to 1927, as the wife of Ferdinand I of Romania.-Early life:...
was filmed in hospitals, easing the suffering of patients. Few sequences remain of the thousands of metres filmed. Some of these were later used in the film Ecaterina Teodoroiu (film), produced in 1930. ( here)
After World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, internationally, film production developed in accordance with the interest of businessmen in the new industry. New studios endowed with good equipment and specialists well trained in the new technology appeared, directors and actors known to the public at large were attracted to work in the new industry, as were renowned screenwriters. Markets were opened for finished film products, which through a market-tested formula managed to bring profits and finance new productions. Film industries with lavish financial resources came to dominate the market, decimating weak national cinemas.
In this context, an active Romanian film industry was but a dream. The approximately 250 movie theatres then in existence in Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
could not even generate the amount of money needed for one film, with profits out of the question. Specialist training for film crew members was non-existent, and Romanian actors were unknown abroad so their work could not be sold outside Romania. Neither did the state accord any attention to film production. Its only preoccupation in this regard was to collect the tax on screenings, which provided a fairly consistent revenue stream, its proceeds at one time amounting to 2/3 of total revenue derived from this type of tax. (This also happened in Communist Romania
Communist Romania
Communist Romania was the period in Romanian history when that country was a Soviet-aligned communist state in the Eastern Bloc, with the dominant role of Romanian Communist Party enshrined in its successive constitutions...
, when the tax on screenings, collected from the film distribution network, covered all the expenses of the Council of Socialist Culture and Education, including film production.)
To all these were added two other catastrophes: Leon Popescu died in 1918, after which his "studio" (in fact some improvised sets in warehouses) on the grounds of the Lyric Theatre burned down; miraculously, of all the films, only one was saved: a copy of Independenţa României
Independenta României
Independenţa României, subtitled The Romanian-Russo-Turkish War 1877, is a Romanian 1912 silent film directed by Aristide Demetriade.-Beginnings:...
(this being incomplete, with about 20 minutes missing). (According to other versions of the story told at the time, suffering from a crisis of nerves brought about by his films' failures, Leon Popescu set fire to his own storehouse of films and died shortly thereafter.)
In 1920, a film studio, Soarele (The Sun), began producing Pe valurile fericirii (On the Waves of Happiness), which starred the Hungarian actress Lya De Putti
Lya De Putti
Lya De Putti was a Hungarian film actress of the silent era, noted for her portrayal of vamp characters.-Early life and career:...
, and the Romanian actors Maria Filotti
Maria Filotti
Maria Filotti was a Romanian actress of Greek origin...
, Ion Manolescu, Gheorghe Storin, Alexandru Mihalescu and Tantzi Cutava-Barozzi. It was directed by Dolly A. Sigetti and the script was based on a play by K. Williamson. The film was never completed. Nevertheless, a few sequences were shown in the form of a trailer.
The year 1921 marked the production of the first Romanian animated film
Animation
Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...
, more precisely of the first Romanian animated cartoon
Animated cartoon
An animated cartoon is a short, hand-drawn film for the cinema, television or computer screen, featuring some kind of story or plot...
, conceived by Aurel Petrescu and called Păcală pe lună (Păcală on the moon). Surprisingly, all the animated films of this director and artist, which he was producing into the sound era, are lost. Showing foresight, Aurel Petrescu created an album with about 80 stills, today owned by the A.N.F. and from which we can get an idea of the techniques used by Petrescu in animating. Some stills have on their edge the black strip denoting recorded sound, which has led researchers to confirm that in his last phase, Petrescu produced sound cartoons.
Jean Mihail also entered the turbulent milieu called the cinema at this time. He was one of the pioneers of Romanian cinema and began his career through his participation as assistant director under the German Alfred Hallm, director of Ţigăncuşa din iatac (The Little Gypsy Girl in the Bedroom). The film, shot on locations such as Mogoşoaia Palace
Mogosoaia Palace
Mogoşoaia Palace is situated about 10 kilometres from Bucharest, Romania. It was built between 1698-1702 by Constantin Brâncoveanu in what is called the Romanian Renaissance style or Brâncovenesc style, a combination of Venetian and Ottoman elements...
, Pasărea Monastery, and Minovici Vila, was based on a script by Victor Beldiman, in turn written after a novel by Radu Rosseti. It was a Spera-Film Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
and Rador-Film Bucharest co-production. It starred Dorina Heller, Elvira Popescu, Ion Iancovescu, Mitzi Vecera, Tantzi Elvas, Ecaterina Vigny, Leon Lefter, Petre Sturdza, Petrescu Muscă and premiered on 30 December 1923. Sadly, the film is lost today.
The lack of a steady supply of financial resources was the constant obsession permanently plaguing Romanian film directors. The absence of a "Leon Popescu", a wealthy man ready to invest his earnings in film production, caused directors and the few actors passionate about the new art to seek financiers who were equally passionate and disinterested. This is how the young actor-director Jean Georgescu found a retiree in the year 1925 who, for more or less artistic reasons, invested his savings in the production of a film called Năbădăile Cleopatrei (Cleopatra's Caprices). Ion Şahighian made his directing debut on this film, which starred Jean Georgescu, Ion Finteşteanu, A. Pop Marţian, Alexandru Giugaru
Alexandru Giugaru
Alexandru Giugaru was a Romanian stage and film actor.Born in Huși, Fălciu , Romania, Giugaru began his stage career in 1916 after graduating from school in Cuza Voda and studying at the Conservatory of Dramatic Arts in Bucharest, Romania...
, N. Soreanu, Brânduşa Grozăvescu and others. It premiered on 5 October 1925 at the Lux theatre. In the same fashion, Jean Georgescu produced the film Milionar pentru o zi (Millionaire for a Day) (1925) in a Bucharest cabaret, since the owner wanted to advertise the building.
Jean Mihail directed Lia
Lia
Lia is a feminine given name. It may be a variant of Leah or a diminutive of various names including Amelia, Cornelia, Ophelia, Rosalia, Natalia or Aurelia.-People with the name Lia:* Lia , Japanese singer...
(1927), on a screenplay by Mircea Filotti financed by a German businessman who wanted to fulfill the wish of his wife, well-known actress Lilly Flohr. Likewise, he made Povara (The Burden) at Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
in 1928 with the money of a lady who wished to see her name listed in the credits as production director.
At the request of a firm that sold coffee, radios, etc., Marcel Blossoms and Micu Kellerman directed the film Lache în harem (1927) (The valet in the harem).
On other occasions, due to lack of money, film enthusiasts would form a cooperative: one would contribute the camera, the other the laboratory, the other the script, the other the direction; the actors were easily obtained due to their desire to see themselves on screen, and finally they had to find a creditor willing to lend them some money on the assurance that it would be returned to him after "the great success of the premiere". This is how there appeared under Jean Mihail's direction Păcat (Sin
Sin
In religion, sin is the violation or deviation of an eternal divine law or standard. The term sin may also refer to the state of having committed such a violation. Christians believe the moral code of conduct is decreed by God In religion, sin (also called peccancy) is the violation or deviation...
) (1924) and Manasse (Manasseh) (1925). The actor Ghiţă Popescu directed Legenda celor două cruci (The Legend of the Two Crosses) (1925), Vitejii neamului (The Bravest of Our People) (1926) and Năpasta (The Calamity) (1927). Jean Georgescu directed Maiorul Mura (Major Mura) (1928), financed by collecting money from friends.
The attraction of the screen and the real desire to make a name for oneself in the new art led to the foundation of several film schools. Students' tuition fees paid for the production of certain films. Of course, the students were unpaid actors, which allowed for widespread distribution. The Clipa-Film studio produced, with this form of financing, the films Iadeş (The Wishbone) (1926), Iancu Jianu
Iancu Jianu
Iancu Jianu was a Wallachian Romanian hajduk.-Biography:Born in Caracal, Oltenia, Wallachia, to the Jianu boyar family, as the youngest of four brothers...
(1927), Haiducii (he Haiduc
Hajduk
Hajduk is a term most commonly referring to outlaws, highwaymen or freedom fighters in the Balkans, Central- and Eastern Europe....
s) (1929), Ciocoii (The Boyar
Boyar
A boyar, or bolyar , was a member of the highest rank of the feudal Moscovian, Kievan Rus'ian, Bulgarian, Wallachian, and Moldavian aristocracies, second only to the ruling princes , from the 10th century through the 17th century....
s) (1930) and, later, Insula Şerpilor (Snake Island
Snake Island (Black Sea)
Snake Island, also known as Serpent Island, , is a Ukrainian island located in the Black Sea near the Danube Delta.The island is populated. A rural settlement of Bile was established in February 2007, which is part of the Vylkove city, Kiliya Raion, Odessa Oblast...
) (1934), the penultimate one featuring an attempt at sound, and the last one being a talkie.
On the other hand, a film production society called Soremar, generally specializing in documentaries
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
and Newsreel
Newsreel
A newsreel was a form of short documentary film prevalent in the first half of the 20th century, regularly released in a public presentation place and containing filmed news stories and items of topical interest. It was a source of news, current affairs and entertainment for millions of moviegoers...
s), produced the 1928 film Simfonia dragostei (The Symphony of Love), directed by Ion Şahighian. With the director Niculescu Brumă they produced the film Ecaterina Teodoroiu (film), in which there appear clips filmed during the First World War of the great personages of the time; the mother of Ecaterina Teodoroiu
Ecaterina Teodoroiu
Ecaterina Teodoroiu was a Romanian woman who fought and died in World War I, and is regarded as a heroine of Romania.In Romanian historiography, Ecaterina Teodoroiu is placed in the context of gendered experience of the Great War on the Eastern Front, on the same pedestal as Queen Maria of...
appeared as herself. These films were produced in Vienna studios.
Other films from this period include Gogulică C.F.R.
Caile Ferate Române
Căile Ferate Române is the official designation of the state railway carrier of Romania. Romania has a railway network of of which are electrified and the total track length is . The network is significantly interconnected with other European railway networks, providing pan-European passenger...
(1929) (unfinished), and Haplea (The Dullard) (animated by Marin Iorda in 1928) - the first Romanian animated film preserved archivally ( A.N.F.).
From a technical point of view, making these films was very difficult. If a film camera could be obtained from newsreel photographers, the print was prepared with them also. The problem of finding a set to use was very difficult, with the director searching for a set among all nearby warehouses, granaries, stables or dance halls. Sometimes filming was done in different apartments or in homes owned by those willing to help. Lights were usually gathered up from photographers' studios. Often, due to overcrowding in residences, films would accidentally display a light or the cameraman and his camera reflected in a mirror or a piece of furniture. The best locations were those offered by various theatres on occasion that work take place at night. Another solution was for them to shoot interiors outdoors. They built their "interiors" on sets exposed to sunlight (thus eliminating artificial lights) and built on a platform that could be rotated and thus make full use of sunlight. The technical crews, in contrast to those found abroad, had to be jacks-of-all-trades, yet ultimately workmen: the cameraman would also prepare the print in the laboratory, the director might be a make-up artist as well, the producer a prop-man, an actor an assistant director. As for distribution, this depended on the actors' willingness to work for free. To all this was added the fact that negatives were scarce, meaning that sequences were filmed in one take only, regardless of the quality of the outcome.
The lack of innovation in the field, due to a lack of materials and sometimes of information, caused these suffering devotees of the new muse to play things by ear, with many films showing weak artistry.
Even if the conditions in which these people worked and created did not allow them to reach a level equal to wider contemporary standards on a technical level, they still managed to record a pretty page in the annals of Romanian film history, despite all the inherent artistic lapses at the beginning.
On the other hand, the intellectuals of the day still considered cinematographic art to be a lowly sideshow, not according it its due importance. It is true that the specialty press was also rather thin on content and sometimes uninspired. In 1928 Tudor Vianu
Tudor Vianu
Tudor Vianu was a Romanian literary critic, art critic, poet, philosopher, academic, and translator. Known for his left-wing and anti-fascist convictions, he had a major role on the reception and development of Modernism in Romanian literature and art...
wrote in the article "The Movie Theatre and the Radio Broadcaster in the Politics of Culture": "The cinematic press [was] created first of all in order to sustain the interests of cinematographic capitalism...There is no actor, no matter how mediocre, not to have been proclaimed a first-rate star by the cinematic press and there is no film, no matter how boring or mundane, not to have been declared an incomparable achievement".
At the end of the 1920s and beginning of the 1930s, cinema entered the consciousness of certain Romanian writers and cultural figures, such as Tudor Vianu, Liviu Rebreanu
Liviu Rebreanu
Liviu Rebreanu was a Romanian novelist, playwright, short story writer, and journalist.- Life :Born in Târlișua , Transylvania, then part of Austria-Hungary, he was the second of thirteen children born to Vasile Rebreanu, a schoolteacher, and Ludovica Diuganu, descendants of peasants...
, Victor Eftimiu
Victor Eftimiu
Victor Eftimiu was an Albanian-Romanian poet, playwright, and a contributor to Sburătorul, a Romanian literary magazine. His works have been performed in the State Jewish Theater of Romania....
, Camil Petrescu
Camil Petrescu
Camil Petrescu was a Romanian playwright, novelist, philosopher and poet. He marked the end of the traditional novel era and laid the foundation of the modern novel era.- Life :...
and Dimitrie Gusti
Dimitrie Gusti
Dimitrie Gusti was a Romanian sociologist, ethnologist, historian, and voluntarist philosopher; a professor at the University of Iaşi and the University of Bucharest, he served as Romania's Minister of Education in 1932-1933...
, who all became aware of this new mode of expression and culture. As Rebreanu observed in 1930,
In this period the film critic D. I. Suchianu made his debut, first in newspapers, then in 1929 in radio. Later on the critic Ion Filotti Cantacuzino
Ion Filotti Cantacuzino
Ion Filotti Cantacuzino or Ion I. Cantacuzino was a Romanian film producer, film producer, writer and psychiatrist.-Biographic data:...
also started broadcasting.
It is worth noting what the princess-poet Elena Văcărescu
Elena Vacarescu
Elena Văcărescu or Hélène Vacaresco was a Romanian-French aristocrat writer, twice a laureate of the Académie française.-Life:...
(the princess who would have become Romania's first native-born queen had King Carol I not forcefully intervened to stop her idyll with prince Ferdinand) said in 1930 about the importance of the seventh art: "Having great power at its disposal, the cinema should work hard...toward the greatest good of peoples and what brings them together, that is, toward peace".
Romanian Talking Films (1930–1947)
The appearance of sound filmSound film
A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades would pass before sound motion pictures were made commercially...
s opened a new stage in the development of world cinema, by implication in the weak cinema of Romania as well. The appearance of sound further complicated the tricky problem of the tehnical-material base, both in terms of production and of projection in theatres. Competition from abroad shattered the dreams of Romanian producers, such that the number of films produced after 1930 within the cinema of Romania fell noticeably. Hence, until 1939, just 16 films were produced. The majority were "Romanian versions" of foreign films produced in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
or Budapest
Budapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
studios with a few Romanian technicians and some Romanian actors. Practically, they were involved in dubbing
Dubbing (filmmaking)
Dubbing is the post-production process of recording and replacing voices on a motion picture or television soundtrack subsequent to the original shooting. The term most commonly refers to the substitution of the voices of the actors shown on the screen by those of different performers, who may be...
. Among these were the Franco-American film Parada Paramount (Paramount on Parade
Paramount on Parade
Paramount on Parade is a all-star revue released by Paramount Pictures, directed by several directors including Edmund Goulding, Dorothy Arzner, Ernst Lubitsch, Rowland V. Lee, A. Edward Sutherland, Victor Heerman, Lothar Mendes, Otto Brower, Edwin H...
), Televiziune (Television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
) (both 1931 and dubbed in Paris) (with George Vraca's voice in the second film), Fum (Smoke
Smoke
Smoke is a collection of airborne solid and liquid particulates and gases emitted when a material undergoes combustion or pyrolysis, together with the quantity of air that is entrained or otherwise mixed into the mass. It is commonly an unwanted by-product of fires , but may also be used for pest...
) 1931, Trenul fantomă (The Phantom Train) 1933, Prima dragoste (First Love
First Love
- Film :* First Love , a 1939 film starring Deanna Durbin* First Love , a 1970 Maximilian Schell film, based on the novella by Turgenev* First Love , a 1973 Indonesian film directed by Teguh Karya...
) and Suflete în furtună (Tempest-tossed Souls) 1934, Hungarian films dubbed in Budapest
Budapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
.
The German director Martin Berger, who in 1929 had directed the silent film (among the last Romanian silent films) Venea o moară pe Siret
Siret River
The Siret or Sireth is a river that rises from the Carpathians in the Northern Bukovina region of Ukraine, and flows southward into Romania for 470 km before it joins the Danube...
(A Mill Was Coming down the Siret) through an official subsidy, came back and in 1930 directed a film based on the novel by Liviu Rebreanu
Liviu Rebreanu
Liviu Rebreanu was a Romanian novelist, playwright, short story writer, and journalist.- Life :Born in Târlișua , Transylvania, then part of Austria-Hungary, he was the second of thirteen children born to Vasile Rebreanu, a schoolteacher, and Ludovica Diuganu, descendants of peasants...
with the same name, Ciuleandra (film). This was the first Romanian talking film. The film was an artistic fiasco because the famous German actors provoked laughter through the German accent they had when speaking Romanian. Even the few Romanian actors who appeared in the film spoke strangely, as the German producers, being unused to the cadence of the Romanian language
Romanian language
Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
, imposed a diction of phrases with long pauses. Hence, in one scene, the son climbed down a staircase saying one word on each step: "How... are... you... father?". The reply sounds the same: "Fine... dear..."!
The year 1932 brought the production Visul lui Tănase (Tănase's Dream) to Romanian screens. It was self-produced in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
by Constantin Tănase
Constantin Tanase
Constantin Tănase was a Romanian actor and writer for stage, a key figure in the revue style of theater in Romania.-Life:Born into a working-class family living in a peasant house in Vaslui, Romania...
. He was the film's financier, screenwriter, and its principal star alongside several good Romanian actors, while the German side provided the studio, direction, technicians, and a troupe of actors.
The great comedians of the inter-war Romanian stage, Stroe and Vasilache, managed, with the help of a Romanian engineer, Argani, who had put together a sound device, to produce the only entirely domestic film of the period, titled Bing-Bang (1934). As film posters noted, it was a "humorous musical" based on a script by Argani, Stroe and Vasilache; with camerawork by I. Bartok; music by N. Stroe and Vasile Vasilache; musical arrangements by Mihai Constantinescu and Max Halm; and starring N. Stroe, Vasile Vasilache, Nora Piacenti, Grigore Vasiliu Birlic
Grigore Vasiliu Birlic
Grigore Vasiliu Birlic was one of the greatest Romanian actors, with a rich history in theatre, television and film. He was best known for comedy roles....
, Titi Botez, C. Calmuschi, Silly Vasiliu, Nutzi Pantazi, Lucica Părvulescu, Richard Rang, Alexandru Brunetti, and Alexandru Giovani. Its premiere took place on 7 February 1935 at the Arpa cinema (inside the Bucharest Cercul Militar).
Enthusiastic Romanian directors, due to lack of funds and disinterest on the part of the ruling authorities, all began to take other paths in their lives. Jean Georgescu left for Paris, where he added sound to his 1934 film, State la Bucureşti (States in Bucharest) in the Gaumont Studio
Gaumont Film Company
Gaumont Film Company is a French film production company founded in 1895 by the engineer-turned-inventor, Léon Gaumont . Gaumont is the oldest continously operating film company in the world....
; the film had originally been made as a silent comedy. Ion Şahighian left cinema for the theatre. Eftimie Vasilescu worked as a newsreel photographer. Only Jean Mihail remained a director based in Romania, though he too had to do work abroad, participating in the dubbing of films at Hunia-Film in Budapest and Barandov in Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
.
During this nadir of Romanian cinema a ray of hope appeared. Politicians, and not only in Romania, realized the great influential power that cinema had as part of the mass media. Cinema could be used for purposes of propaganda, for influencing the masses at large with different levels of culture. (Even Lenin
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...
, realizing the propaganda power of film, said: "Of all the arts, the most important for us is cinema". Hence, film could be used as an important ideological weapon and the Communists needed it in their "great work" of destroying democracies). Furthermore, it had been proven that the tenacious work of Romanian film directors, despite all its imperfections, had been well received by the public, and had begun to prove right those who kept calling for subsidies toward the production of Romanian films.
Thus, at the beginning of 1934, a law was passed establishing a National Cinema Fund. This was funded through a tax of 1 leu per ticket and 10 lei per meter of imported film. Its stated purpose was to create a material base for Romanian film production (studios, laboratories, equipment, etc.) and, as subsequent revenue came in, to finance productions as well. The fund's administration was placed in the hands of a committee formed by Professor Tudor Vianu, Professor Alexandru Rosetti and the writer Ion Marin Sadoveanu
Ion Marin Sadoveanu
Ion Marin Sadoveanu was a Romanian playwright.- Biography :...
. These taxes provoked strong protests from film importers and movie theatre owners, yet with the authorities not yielding, tempers soon relaxed.
Following the passage of this law, Romanian cinéastes began a flurry of activity, planning all sorts of projects. An entrepreneur brought in a Bell-Howel sound recorder and founded a company called The Romanian Sound Film Industry, commencing with the production of newsreel
Newsreel
A newsreel was a form of short documentary film prevalent in the first half of the 20th century, regularly released in a public presentation place and containing filmed news stories and items of topical interest. It was a source of news, current affairs and entertainment for millions of moviegoers...
s. Together with Jean Mihail he began the production of a documentary film, România (Romania).
Through the contribution of a private entrepreneur, Tudor Posmantir, a laboratory named Ciro-film was built in 1936–1937, equipped with Debrie devices. This was a modern laboratory for developing and copying films, thus assuring that modern work techniques would be used. A "film studio" was also built nearby–this was in fact a large wooden hangar, but rather good for producing films. It was here that Ion Şahighian filmed O noapte de pomină (An Unforgettable Night), from a script by Tudor Muşatescu
Tudor Musatescu
Tudor Muşatescu was a Romanian playwright and short story writer, best known for his humorous prose.-Biography:Muşatescu was born in Câmpulung to a family of middle-class intellectuals — his father was a lawyer while his mother was a writer. He began writing during his early years in school...
, starring George Timică and Dina Cocea
Dina Cocea
Dina Cocea was a Romanian stage actress and occasional movie star with a career that spanned 50 years. Among other activities, Cocea was an actor in residence at Bucharest's National Theatre for 17 years, a university professor, writer and columnist, playwright, political activist and...
, in 1939. The film found great success with audiences and received a favorable critical reception. Thus it was shown what good technical equipment could do for the industry.
Through various governments' decisions, the National Cinema Fund was placed within the Tourism Office, where a cinema section had been established for creating travelogues. The material base created was that initially stated as the project's goal and indeed of good quality. The film cameras were of the newsreel type, with portable sound equipment set up in an automobile; work was soon finished on a sound recording room for documentaries, with minimal artificial lights in the studio. This all disappointed the creators of artistic films, as they lacked suitable sets for filming.
Also in this period at the end of the 1930s, Oficiul Naţional Cinematografic (O.N.C., the National Cinematographic Office) was formed, headed by the film critic D. I. Suchianu. In the beginning the office worked on a periodic newsreel program and on documentary production. Construction was also begun on a studio and completed with difficulty due to the start of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. The O.N.C. produced the documentary Ţara Moţilor (Moţilor Land), which received a prize at the 1938 Venice Film Festival
Venice Film Festival
The Venice International Film Festival is the oldest international film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the...
. The film was directed by Paul Călinescu
Paul Calinescu
Paul Călinescu was a Romanian film director and screenwriter. He directed 14 films between 1934 and 1964.-External links:...
and marked the entry of the Romanian documentary into the realm of cinematic art ( A.N.F., the second). During the war, the O.N.C. was placed at the disposal of the Army General Staff, the majority of cameramen being sent to the front, and technicians being employed exclusively for the needs of wartime propaganda.
Despite all these difficulties, the film O noapte furtunoasă (A Stormy Night) was completed between 1941 and 1942 in the O.N.C. "studio". Producing the film under wartime conditions was a labor fit for Sisyphus
Sisyphus
In Greek mythology Sisyphus was a king punished by being compelled to roll an immense boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down, and to repeat this throughout eternity...
, equally for the actors, cameraman, stage electricians, script-girl, stage designers and prop handlers. All the exteriors had to be constructed in the small 18x11 m studio, intended for music recording, since exterior shooting at night was impossible due to the need to maintain camouflage. For panoramic or travelling shots, two or three scenes had to be shot on a stage that had to be decorated two or three times over, and then combined in order to constitute a whole shot. The way this worked in practice was that once a scene was filmed, the set was taken down and the next design thrown up. Only one thing was not lacking for them: photographic material. In the end, 29,000 m were shot. The film O noapte furtunoasă was directed by Jean Georgescu, based on the eponymous comedy by Ion Luca Caragiale
Ion Luca Caragiale
Ion Luca Caragiale was a Wallachian-born Romanian playwright, short story writer, poet, theater manager, political commentator and journalist...
; the assistant directors were Ionel Iliescu, Virgil Stoenescu, I. Marinescu, and P. Băleanu; the cameraman was Gerard Perrin (from Paris); the sound engineers were A. Bielisici, V. Cantunari, and G. Mărăi; editing was done by Ivonne Herault (from Paris) and Lucia Anton; makeup by the Sturh couple (of Berlin); choreography by Emil Bobescu; music by Paul Constantinescu
Paul Constantinescu
Paul Constantinescu was a Romanian composer.-Major works:*Piano concerto*Violin concerto*Symphony No.1*The Nativity *A stormy night *Pana Lesnea Rusalim...
; set design by Ştefan Norris; storyboards and costumes by Aurel Jiquidi; and production direction by Ion Cantacuzino
Ion Filotti Cantacuzino
Ion Filotti Cantacuzino or Ion I. Cantacuzino was a Romanian film producer, film producer, writer and psychiatrist.-Biographic data:...
. The film starred Alexandru Giugaru
Alexandru Giugaru
Alexandru Giugaru was a Romanian stage and film actor.Born in Huși, Fălciu , Romania, Giugaru began his stage career in 1916 after graduating from school in Cuza Voda and studying at the Conservatory of Dramatic Arts in Bucharest, Romania...
, Maria Maximilian, Florica Demion, Radu Beligan
Radu Beligan
Radu Beligan is a Romanian actor who has appeared in theatre, film, television, and radio.He played many celebrated roles by major Romanian playwrights and universally known roles by Shakespeare, Goldoni,...
, Iordănescu Bruno, George Demetru, Ion Baroi, George Ciprian
George Ciprian
George Ciprian was a Romanian actor and playwright. His writings make him a precursor of the Theatre of the Absurd.-Biography:...
, Miluţă Ghiorghiu, Leontina Ioanid, Doina Missir, Iuliana Sym, Cornelia Teodosiu, Elena Bulandra, Vasiliu Falti, Lică Rădulescu, Ion Stănescu, Nicolae Teodoru, O. Rocos, Iancu Constantinescu and Jean Moscopol. It premiered on 22 March 1943 at the ARO theatre. This was the first and last film produced by the O.N.C.; for many years it remained a point of reference in the annals of cinematic art in Romania.
Film production nevertheless continued. In 1944, a Romanian-Italian company, Cineromit, assigned the production of the film Visul unei nopţi de iarnă (A Winter Night's Dream) to director Jean Georgescu; the script was from the play by Tudor Muşatescu
Tudor Musatescu
Tudor Muşatescu was a Romanian playwright and short story writer, best known for his humorous prose.-Biography:Muşatescu was born in Câmpulung to a family of middle-class intellectuals — his father was a lawyer while his mother was a writer. He began writing during his early years in school...
. The film was finished only near the end of the year 1945 due to the events of the war. For the most part, the technical crew was that of O noapte furtunoasă, plus the French cameraman Louis Behrend. The actors were George Demetru, Ana Colda, Maria Filotti, Mişu Fotino and Radu Beligan. It premiered on 2 March 1946 at the Excelsior cinema.
There followed in rapid succession several productions completed in cooperaration with Danish and Hungarian studios by Balcan-Film Company Bucharest. Of note were "Allo Bucureşti" (Hello Bucharest), "Furtul din Arizona" (The Arizona Theft) and "Două lumi şi o dragoste" (Two Worlds and One Love), all made in 1946.
Also important was the 1946, production Pădurea îndrăgostiţilor (The Lovers' Forest), produced at Doina-Film, on which the O.N.C. technical crew worked, with the director and cameraman being Cornel Dumitrescu.
Cinema during Communism (1948–1989)
2 November 1948 meant a new beginning for Romanian cinema. On that day, Decree 303, regarding "the nationalization of the film industry and the regulation of commerce in cinematic products", was signed.This can also be called the period of socialist cinema. Following "the teaching of the great Lenin
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...
, the ideologue of the social formation of the proletarian class", who showed that "of all the arts, the most important for us is cinema", however, not as an art but as an instrument of ideological influence, the newly installed regime fully subsidised the production of films which, as a necessity, as an imperative, openly disseminated propaganda.
In an era in which "not being with us means being against us", films had to actively strive to show the realities of the new society. Socialist films had to reflect the struggle of the "new man" against the "old retrograde society, a society in which man exploited his fellow man, full of capitalists and men of inherited wealth who sucked the blood of the working classes". Many films had as their theme the attempts of the retrograde bourgeois-landed gentry class to render futile the new objectives of victorious socialism through their stooges; but these efforts would fail because the Romanian Workers' (later Communist) Party
Romanian Communist Party
The Romanian Communist Party was a communist political party in Romania. Successor to the Bolshevik wing of the Socialist Party of Romania, it gave ideological endorsement to communist revolution and the disestablishment of Greater Romania. The PCR was a minor and illegal grouping for much of the...
, through its activists, would inspire, depending on the situation, workers or peasants toward victory. The same themes were found in documentaries
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
and newsreel
Newsreel
A newsreel was a form of short documentary film prevalent in the first half of the 20th century, regularly released in a public presentation place and containing filmed news stories and items of topical interest. It was a source of news, current affairs and entertainment for millions of moviegoers...
s. Everything in these productions was "gilt" with the "glorious achievements of the working class allied with the working peasantry".
Also notable is the fact that the choice of actors for such productions was not random. Fat actors, especially those with a paunch, were chosen to play the landed gentry, while poor peasants were played by those actors who were thin yet possessed a piercing gaze and a determined gait; those who played party activists had to have the look of a workman, be muscular, and have an intelligent facial expression. The choice of actors was very important in sketching out the characters that they would play.
Unequivocally, the cinematic art of the period can be said to have been, in fact, an illustration of the era's ideology. Films had to unmask, to be hymns for a new life, to plead for some Party objective, to sound an alarm, or to show the glorious past of the working class's struggle or that of the working peasantry.
So as to have cadres ready to fill the necessary positions in the industry, Institutul de artă cinematografică (The Institute of Cinematographic Art") was founded, with a mission of preparing the new cadres needed for the new cinema: actors, directors and cameramen. It was from here that the "golden generation" not only of Romanian film but also of the national theatre graduated: the actors Silvia Popovici, Iurie Darie
Iurie Darie
Iurie Darie is a Romanian actor. He was born in what is now Moldova. He made his debut in cinematography in 1953.-References:...
, Florin Piersic
Florin Piersic
-Biography:His family left Cluj when it was ceded to Hungary in 1940, and moved to Cernăuţi after the city's occupation by Romania the following year. There, his father was appointed to the role of chief municipal veterinary. Later they returned home, and Florin graduated from the High School for...
, Constantin Diplan, Amza Pellea
Amza Pellea
Amza Pellea was one of the most important Romanian actors, being remarked both for his theatre and his film acting.Born in Băileşti, in Oltenia, he attended the Carol I High School...
, Dem Rădulescu
Dem Radulescu
Dem Rădulescu was a Romanian theatre, film and television actor and academic. He was also a professor at the Universitatea Naţională de Artă Teatrală şi Cinematografică – I.L. Caragiale, in Bucharest.-Personal life:...
, Stela Popescu, Sebastian Papaiani, Leopoldina Bălănuţă
Leopoldina Balanuta
-Biography:She was a 1958 graduate of the Bucharest Institute of Theater and Cinematographic Art .Her father was an Orthodox priest in Focşani. She was married to actor Mitică Popescu....
and Draga Olteanu, along with directors like Manole Marcus, Geo Saizescu, Iulian Mihu, Gheorghe Vitanidis
Gheorghe Vitanidis
Gheorghe Vitanidis was a Romanian film director. He directed 19 films between 1958 and 1987.-External links:...
, and many others.
Romania now had a national cinema after a period when the old regime had not really invested anything in the new art. The socialist authorities, through the investments made, wanted to show the whole world and at the same time to prove how much it cared about the new art, "the seventh art", as the cultural commisars of film work said with pride–men who were also called "gum-flappers" by the new professionals who made films out of passion for the art. These commisars were people who, 90% of the time, had no connection not only with the cinema, but also with culture; people who did not even have a middling amount of preparation, who came from all sorts of unrelated fields and who themselves in discussions labelled film as "a pipe dream". At least in the distribution networks, the directors of the cinematographic enterprises, at first regional, then county
Counties of Romania
The 41 judeţe and the municipality of Bucharest comprise the official administrative divisions of Romania. They also represent the European Union' s NUTS-3 geocode statistical subdivision scheme of Romania.-Overview:...
-wide, were activists who at a certain point in time were determined no longer to be able to carry out the "exigent demands" of Party work. Still, the real purpose for which these cadres were put into place is that suggested above. Here too there were exceptions, exceptions which were beneficial to the act of film distribution. Even if when they entered the industry they had nothing in common with the cinema, the wonderful world of the screen fascinated them, changed their conception about film and allowed them to make beneficial contributions to the industry later on. They lobbied for funds to replace the technically obsolete film equipment; they changed the appearance of movie theatres, installing elegant padded seats in place of the earlier wooden ones; they acquired ventilation systems and many other things conducive to a quality film-going experience.
At the time of nationalization, the technical-material base of film production consisted of:
- A film studio comprising a 200 m² (239 sq yd) stage, screening rooms, a sound recording room and other annexes
- The film print preparation laboratory at Mogoşoaia, equipped with developing at copying machines for 35 mm black-and-white prints, which was used for all works of the entire domestic and foreign production.
This fact led the leading Party and state institutions to decide to found a center for film production. In 1950, construction began at Buftea
Buftea
Buftea is a town in Ilfov county, Romania, located 20 km north-west of Bucharest. Its population is growing due to its proximity to Bucharest. One village, Buciumeni, is administered by the town....
on what would come to be called Centrul de producţie cinematografică Buftea (The Buftea Studio), also known as C.P.C. Buftea (today MediaPro Studios
MediaPro Studios
MediaPro Studios in Romania is Eastern Europe's largest and longest established film studios with a tradition in cinema spanning over 60 years. It provides full production services for the international film and TV industry. The complex is located in the town of Buftea, some 20 kilometers...
). The project was finished in 1959. Technically speaking, C.P.C. Buftea rivalled any Western European film studio.
In this period a series of films was produced at the Floreasca Complex, which, since 1956, had been taken over by Televiziunea Română (Romanian Television). This studio was much bigger than that used at the time of nationalization (600 m²); it had a recording room, further technical installations in annexes, and a laboratory for the preparation of 35 mm prints both in black and white and color (Orwo color). Another studio of about 320 m² (383 sq yd) was built inside the Tomis cinema.
For the production of technical supplies needed both by studios and film distributors, Intreprinderea de Stat Tehnocin (The Tehnocin State Enterprise) was founded in 1950 and in 1959 merged with Industria Optică Română (The Romanian Optics Industry). Movie projector
Movie projector
A movie projector is an opto-mechanical device for displaying moving pictures by projecting them on a projection screen. Most of the optical and mechanical elements, except for the illumination and sound devices, are present in movie cameras.-Physiology:...
s for 35 mm and 16 mm film were produced, as were sound systems for movie theatres, reflecting lenses, dollies
Camera dolly
A camera dolly is a specialized piece of filmmaking and television production equipment designed to create smooth camera movements . The camera is mounted to the dolly and the camera operator and focus puller or camera assistant, usually ride on the dolly to operate the camera...
, and artificial studio lights.
Likewise, so that there would be technical cadres well-prepared to work in studios and in the operation of movie projectors, professional schools for projectionists were founded at Craiova
Craiova
Craiova , Romania's 6th largest city and capital of Dolj County, is situated near the east bank of the river Jiu in central Oltenia. It is a longstanding political center, and is located at approximately equal distances from the Southern Carpathians and the River Danube . Craiova is the chief...
and Târgu-Mureş
Târgu-Mures
Târgu Mureș is the seat of Mureș County in the north-central part of Romania. As of January 1, 2009 the city had a population of 145,151 inhabitants, making it the 16th most-populated city in Romania.-Names and etymology:...
, while at Bucharest
Bucharest
Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....
, a "technical school for technical personnel" was opened, intended to prepare movie theatre operators and studio managers.
Earlier, mention was made of documentaries
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
and newsreel
Newsreel
A newsreel was a form of short documentary film prevalent in the first half of the 20th century, regularly released in a public presentation place and containing filmed news stories and items of topical interest. It was a source of news, current affairs and entertainment for millions of moviegoers...
s being as necessary as fiction films for Communist propaganda. For this purpose the Alex Sahia Studio was founded in 1950, equipped with the best materials then available on the market: Arriflex reporters' cameras, Klang, Perfectone and Negra portable and fixed sound recording devices, Prevost editing tables, and other items. From 1954 another type of documentary began to be produced: popular science films
Educational film
An educational film is a film or movie whose primary purpose is to educate. Educational films have been used in classrooms as an alternative to other teaching methods.-Cultural significance:...
.
If, until 1948, the production of animated films
Animation
Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...
was virtually non-existent, after this year many such films began to be produced at the Bucharest Studio, with a total of 15 films in 1955. Particularly notable was the contribution of Ion Popescu-Gopo
Ion Popescu-Gopo
Ion Popescu-Gopo was a Romanian graphic artist and animator, but also writer, movie director and actor born in Bucharest, Romania. He was a prominent personality in the Romanian cinematography and the founder of the modern Romanian cartoon school. He was, together with Liviu Ciulei and Mirel...
, father of the little man
Gopo's Little Man
Gopo's Little Man is a humanoid character that appears in most of Ion Popescu-Gopo's animation films.-History and symbolism:...
who, appearing in Scurtă istorie (A Short History) in 1957, won him a Palme d'Or
Palme d'Or
The Palme d'Or is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival and is presented to the director of the best feature film of the official competition. It was introduced in 1955 by the organising committee. From 1939 to 1954, the highest prize was the Grand Prix du Festival International du...
for Best Short Film at Cannes
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
that year. The success of Romania's animated films convinced the authorities to found the Animafilm studio in 1964. Here, "diafilms", slides for teaching use, were also produced, as were television commercials.
As far as the distribution of films is concerned, after the nationalization of movie theatres (only 35 mm ones, as 16 mm theatres did not exist), it was concluded that many had to be shut down because of their decaying state or because of their physically obsolete equipment. A crisis followed, there being a shortage of theatre administrators and projectionists that forced films in some counties to be shown only outdoors. This situation caused the Committee for Cinematography to be formed on 7 June 1950 alongside the Council of Ministers, and inside this institution the Film Distribution Network Directorate was established. Later, this office ran the County-level Cinematographic State Enterprises when they were established. The importance of these led to the allocation of funds necessary for the film distribution network to be developed. Implicitly, movie theatres and the establishment of 16 mm cinemas in rural areas were also a goal–together, these objectives were known as cineficare ("filmification", analogous to electrification). In the 1950s 1000 16 mm projectors and 100 film caravans (mobile theatres) were imported from the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
in order to promote the introduction of film into the rural environment. Reorganizations also took place in the next few years. Thus, in July 1952, Direcţia Difuzării Filmelor (D.D.F.) (The Film Screening Directorate) was founded. In 1956 this was merged with the Film Distribution Network Directorate to form Direcţia Reţelei Cinematografice şi a Difuzării Filmelor (D.R.C.D.F) (The Film Distribution and Screening Directorate), under the guidance of the Ministry of Culture. The purpose of this institution was to promote a single policy regarding Romania's movie theatres, "the control and guidance of political-ideological work with the cinema, the showing of films based on the political-technical demands of the various stages of the construction of socialism", as well as to craft the economical-financial plan to be fulfilled.
The reorganizations continued, so that in 1971 Centrala România-Film (Romania-Film Central) was founded, having under its authority C.P.C. Buftea, the financing of film production through five studios, import-export and the screening of films.
Although the technical vagaries of the industry at this time have nothing to do with the cinema of Romania as an art, it is also useful to recall how distribution into movie theatres took place. Romanian film production, such as it was in 1948, was practically non-existent. The timid beginnings of Romanian film production were started by director Puiu Călinescu with the film Răsună Valea (The Valley Resounds), with a theme similar to those discussed above. But, for such a "rich national production", other films were needed in the screening repertoire. Hence, the focus was on importing films also produced in countries that had started down the path of constructing socialism. Many of them also had "rich productions" and so everyone in the Eastern Bloc's orientation was toward "the country with the best and most educational cinema in the world, the USSR
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
". From here films with a "high ideological content" were imported and shown in Romania.
Of course, not all films on Romanian screens were of this type. Even domestically, besides propaganda films, directors made films which, without renouncing "educational" values, also numbered among them diversionary films, cloak and sword epics, and adaptations of Russian literature. Films were even imported from "other countries", that is, from capitalist ones. Of course, the importation of these films was done in a very rigorous manner with regard to themes. However, the cinephile public was not denied a chance to see some of the great works of world cinema, including works of Italian neorealism
Italian neorealism
Italian neorealism is a style of film characterized by stories set amongst the poor and working class, filmed on location, frequently using nonprofessional actors...
and its successors (Rome, open city
Rome, open city
Rome, Open City is a 1945 Italian war drama film, directed by Roberto Rossellini. The picture features Aldo Fabrizi, Anna Magnani and Marcello Pagliero, and is set in Rome during the Nazi occupation in 1944...
, Bicycle Thieves
Bicycle Thieves
Bicycle Thieves , also known as The Bicycle Thief, is a 1948 Italian neorealist film directed by Vittorio De Sica. It tells the story of a poor man searching the streets of Rome for his stolen bicycle, which he needs to be able to work. The film is based on the novel of the same name by Luigi...
, and Rocco e i suoi fratelli
Rocco e i suoi fratelli
Rocco e i suoi fratelli is a 1960 Italian and French film directed by Luchino Visconti. Set in Milan, it tells the story of an immigrant family from the South and its disintegration in the society of the industrial North. The film stars Alain Delon, Renato Salvatori, Annie Girardot, and Claudia...
), Judgment at Nuremberg
Judgment at Nuremberg
Judgment at Nuremberg is a 1961 American drama film dealing with the Holocaust and the Post-World War II Nuremberg Trials. It was written by Abby Mann, directed by Stanley Kramer, and starred Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark, Maximilian Schell, Werner Klemperer, Marlene Dietrich, Judy...
, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner is a 1967 American drama film starring Spencer Tracy, Sidney Poitier and Katharine Hepburn, and featuring Hepburn's niece Katharine Houghton...
, In the Heat of the Night, a series of Westerns
Western (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...
, Gone with the Wind
Gone with the Wind (film)
Gone with the Wind is a 1939 American historical epic film adapted from Margaret Mitchell's Pulitzer-winning 1936 novel of the same name. It was produced by David O. Selznick and directed by Victor Fleming from a screenplay by Sidney Howard...
(USA
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
), and many others from France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
, Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
and China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
.
Once the number of films (some of which had a weak commercial content but a high political-ideological component and were avoided by the public) produced by Romanian studios rose, and import taxes were lowered, the quality of films shown, in particular that of art films, suffered. At one point 40% of films shown were Romanian and 60% foreign, including those from other Warsaw Pact
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance , or more commonly referred to as the Warsaw Pact, was a mutual defense treaty subscribed to by eight communist states in Eastern Europe...
nations. Many times even these were hostile to ceauşist
Nicolae Ceausescu
Nicolae Ceaușescu was a Romanian Communist politician. He was General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989, and as such was the country's second and last Communist leader...
propaganda (one could no longer speak of "Communist" propaganda), as was Malenkaya Vera, which already displayed the effects of perestroika
Perestroika
Perestroika was a political movement within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union during 1980s, widely associated with the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev...
.
Romanian cinema (1990-present)
The collapse of Communism changed the situation of Romanian cinema. Filmmakers examined the Communist period and the economic and spiritual crisis in the country. Production often depended on the state grants, awarded by a jury; it was found that many of the grants were awarded within a clique of earlier members of the jury, twisting the goal of the system. It took the international success of filmmakers disliked by the juries to change the system. The new millennium saw a reemergence of Romanian cinema. In 2001 and 2002, Romanian directors competed in the Directors' FortnightDirectors' Fortnight
Directors' Fortnight is an independent section held in parallel to the Cannes Film Festival. The section was created in 1969 after the events of May 1968, in which the Cannes festival was canceled in solidarity with striking workers....
section parallel to the Cannes Film Festival
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
with Cristi Puiu
Cristi Puiu
Cristi Puiu is a Romanian film director and screenwriter.Puiu's first interest in art was painting and in 1992, he was admitted as a student at the Painting Department of Ecole Superieure d'Arts Visuels in Geneva. After the first year he switched to film studies at the same school and graduated in...
's first feature film Stuff and Dough (aka Marfa şi banii) and Cristian Mungiu's Occident
Occident (film)
Occident is a Romanian film released in 2002, and directed by Cristian Mungiu. It stars Alexandru Papadopol as a 29-year old man named Luci and Anca Androne as his wife Sorina...
, respectively.
In 2005, Puiu's second feature, The Death of Mr. Lăzărescu
The Death of Mr. Lazarescu
The Death of Mr. Lazarescu is a 2005 Romanian dark comedy film by director Cristi Puiu. In the film an old man is carried by an ambulance from hospital to hospital all night long, as doctors keep refusing to treat him and send him away....
, a journey through the Romanian health care system, competed in the un certain regard category of the Cannes Film Festival
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
and won the prize "Un certain regard". It thereafter won many more prizes around the world, becoming the most awarded Romanian film ever made. American critics, previously rarely interested in Romanian cinema, were especially enthusiastic about the film; 93 percent of reviews it received were categorized by Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
as positive.
At the 2006 Cannes Film Festival
2006 Cannes Film Festival
The 2006 Cannes Film Festival ran from May 17, 2006 to May 28, 2006. Twenty films from eleven countries were in competition for the Palme d'Or. The President of the Official Jury was Wong Kar-wai, the first Chinese director to preside over the jury....
, Romanian director Corneliu Porumboiu
Corneliu Porumboiu
Corneliu Porumboiu is a Romanian film director and screenwriter. His 2006 feature 12:08 East of Bucharest won him the Camera d'Or prize at the Cannes Film Festival...
won the Camera d'Or best-first-feature award for 12:08 East of Bucharest
12:08 East of Bucharest
12:08 East of Bucharest is a 2006 Romanian film directed by Corneliu Porumboiu, released in 2006 and winner of the Camera d'Or Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. It was also released in the United States under the abridged titles East of Bucharest and 12:08 Bucharest...
(aka A fost sau n-a fost?) and Cătălin Mitulescu
Catalin Mitulescu
Cătălin Mitulescu is a Romanian film director. He graduated from the UNATC in Bucharest in 2001.He is best known for the short film Trafic , which won him the Short Film Palme d'Or at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival and for the debut feature The Way I Spent the End of the World , which was screened...
(The Way I Spent the End of the World) competed in the Un Certain Regard section. In 2007, Cristian Nemescu
Cristian Nemescu
Cristian Nemescu was a Romanian film director.Nemescu was born in Bucharest. He graduated from the Academy for Theater and Film in 2003. During his final year in the academy he made a short film, Story From The Third Block Entrance, that received awards at the NYU International Student Film...
's posthumous California Dreamin' won the prize in the Un Certain Regard section, while Mungiu's 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days is a 2007 Romanian film written and directed by Cristian Mungiu. It won the Palme d'Or and the FIPRESCI Award at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival....
received the Palme d'Or
Palme d'Or
The Palme d'Or is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival and is presented to the director of the best feature film of the official competition. It was introduced in 1955 by the organising committee. From 1939 to 1954, the highest prize was the Grand Prix du Festival International du...
in the Cannes film festival - the first time a Romanian filmmaker won that prize. At the 2008 Cannes Film Festival
2008 Cannes Film Festival
The 61st Annual Cannes Film Festival was held from May 14 to May 25, 2008. In addition to films selected for competition this year, major Hollywood productions such as Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Kung Fu Panda had their world premieres at the festival.The British press...
Marian Crişan's Megatron (film) won the Palme d'Or for short film.
In 2009 Katalin Varga
Katalin Varga (film)
Katalin Varga is a 2009 film directed by Peter Strickland.The directorial debut of Peter Strickland, he used the money from a bequest from his uncle to fund the project. Filmed over several years in a Hungarian-speaking part of the Romanian region of Transylvania, Strickland completed the project...
with British film director Peter Strickland won the New Talent Pix Award on the CPH:Pix
Cph:pix
CPH PIX is an annual film festival in Copenhagen, Denmark. The festival resulted from the merger in 2008 of the Copenhagen International Film Festival and the NatFilm Festival to create an organisation called Copenhagen Film Festivals, which also manages the documentary film festival CPH:DOX and...
film festival.
In 2010, If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle
If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle
If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle is a 2010 Romanian drama film directed by Florin Şerban.-Plot:Romanian youth Silviu serves a four-year prison sentence. A few days before his release, his younger brother visits him and tells him that their mother has returned, who has found work in Italy and will...
(aka Eu când vreau să fluier, fluier) directed by Florin Şerban
Florin Şerban
Florin Şerban is a Romanian film director whose film If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle won the Jury Grand Prix and the Alfred Bauer Prize at the 2010 Berlin Film festival...
won the Jury Grand Prix
Jury Grand Prix
The Jury Grand Prix is a Silver Bear award given by the jury at the Berlin International Film Festival to one of the feature films in competition...
Silver Bear. The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu by director Andrei Ujica
Andrei Ujica
Andrei Ujica is a Romanian screenwriter and director.- Life and works :Ujica studied literature in Timişoara, Bucharest and Heidelberg. He moved to Germany in 1981. In 1990 he began making films...
, which tells the story of the former dictator based on 1000 hours footage from his own television archives, was shown Out of Competition at Cannes in 2010.
Romania has also been chosen by foreign filmmakers as a location for filming scenes, such as Cold Mountain
Cold Mountain (film)
Cold Mountain is a 2003 war drama film written and directed by Anthony Minghella. The film is based on the bestselling novel of the same name by Charles Frazier...
, the "Kazakh" village in Sacha Baron Cohen
Sacha Baron Cohen
Sacha Noam Baron Cohen is an English stand-up comedian, actor, writer, and voice artist. He is most widely known for his portrayal of three unorthodox fictional characters: Ali G, Borat, and Brüno...
's Borat, the French film Transylvania
Transylvania (film)
Transylvania is a 2006 French drama film starring Asia Argento. In 2006, Director Tony Gatlif and composer Delphine Mantoulet won the "Georges Delerue Prize" at the Flanders International Film Festival for the score, and Gatlif was nominated for the "Grand Prix" award...
or the 2004 American horror film Gargoyle: Wings of Darkness, to name just a few.
See also
- Cinema of the world
- List of Romanian films
- MediaPro StudiosMediaPro StudiosMediaPro Studios in Romania is Eastern Europe's largest and longest established film studios with a tradition in cinema spanning over 60 years. It provides full production services for the international film and TV industry. The complex is located in the town of Buftea, some 20 kilometers...
- MediaPro PicturesMediaPro PicturesMediaPro Pictures is the largest film and TV production company in Romania, part of MediaPro Entertainment along with other production units from Czech Republic, Croatia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Bulgaria....
External links
A.N.F.- european-films.net – Reviews, trailers, interviews, news and previews of recent and upcoming European films (in English)