Cristian Mungiu
Cristian Mungiu, special guest
Cristian Mungiu was born in 1968 in Iași, Romania. He first studied literature before joining the Bucharest Film School, while also working as an assistant director on Captain Conan by Bertrand Tavernier and Train of Life by Radu Mihaileanu. After his first film, Occident [Occident], which was presented at the Directors’ Fortnight in 2002 but never released in France, he became the first Romanian filmmaker to win the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 2007 for his second feature, 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days [4 mois, 3 semaines, 2 jours], a story about an illegal abortion under Ceaușescu.
In 2009, he returned to Cannes as a screenwriter, co-director, and producer of the anthology film Tales from the Golden Age [Contes de l’âge d’or]. In 2012, Beyond the Hills [Au-delà des collines] received the Best Screenplay award at Cannes, as well as a double Acting Award for his actresses Cosmina Stratan and Cristina Flutur. Again selected for the Official Competition at the Cannes Film Festival in 2016, Graduation [Baccalauréat], shot in long takes, earned him the Best Director Award. He returned to the Cannes Competition in 2022 with R.M.N. [R.M.N.], a masterful fresco on major European issues, set in a small Transylvanian village. He has just completed shooting his eighth film in Norway.
In 2024, his novel A Romanian Life – Tania Ionascu, My Grandmother from Bessarabia [Une vie roumaine – Tania Ionascu, ma grand-mère de Bessarabie] was published in France (translated by Laure Hinckel, Marest). By transcribing his grandmother Tania’s testimony, he seeks to come to terms with “the vanity of her life – and of life in general.” This work is also a filmmaker’s manifesto, affirming his origins through an intimate and powerful narrative. Mungiu rejects his grandmother’s sadness, as well as that of the past. To resist the immutable, he tells, documents, and films the world as he sees it.
In 2010, he created his festival Films from Cannes in Bucharest [Les films de Cannes à Bucarest], whose next edition will take place from October 24 to November 2.