Cristian Mungiu
Romanian
Director
The best director at Cannes...
...is Romanian and his name is Cristian Mungiu. If, economically speaking, Romania is situated at the bottom of the list of European countries, through the flaming power of contemporary cinematography, it reflects the ceaselessly burning creative spirit of a gifted and affectionate nation.
Few remember the blooming success of some Romanian film makers who lived abroad, at the breakthrough of worldwide cinematography. One of them, Jean Negulescu, who left Romania in 1927, overwhelmed the film industry and unmistakably succeeded inacquiring a prestigious position ar the "Warner Bros" in the USA. Big names were part of his distribution, such as: Marilyn Monroe, Fred Astaire, Leslie Caron, Richard Burton, Sophia Loren, Lauren Bacall, Maurice Chevailer, Joan Crawford.
2016 marked one of the most valuable Romanian appearances in the history of the Cannes Film Festival. Three films distinguished themselves in the official contest of the Festival: "Graduation" by Cristian Mungiu and "Sierra Nevada" by Cristian Puiu and the film "The Dogs" by Bogdan Mirica in the "Un Certain Regard" section. Mungiu's movie, "Graduation", won the Film Directing award, being highly praised and favorably recognised by critics and audience altogether. The famous movie critic, Peter Bradshaw, from The Guardian, regards the movie as a "a five-star study of grubby bureaucratic compromise". The movie was granted 5/5 stars by the critic, which is no mean feat.
The movie depicts a metaphorical time of war, a never-ending warfare between the cynical generation of grown-ups and the ardent, volcanic and unleashed spirits of youngsters, all compounded into the form of a tangled mosaic, a cinematogrphic thesaurus. The director wields the laborious human conscience and sketches the desolate portret of the ones that gave up hope. Asked whether his creation represents a lash towards the Romanian educational system, Mungiu harshly replied that society represents a mere background in the scene of life and what is essential is only the personal reponse towards one's education and ethical problems: " What will you do the moment you realise how much you despise your actual lifestyle and how will you go on raising your children?"
Though Mungiu has studied American and English literature and worked both as a professor and as a journalist, in 1998 he graduated from the "Theatre and Film Academy of Bucharest". The director marked his name in the history of film making with his first groundbreaking movie, "4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days" (2007), which was firstly awarded by The International Federation of the Cinematographic Press and the French National Educational Administration, and, finally, with the Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival-Palme d'Or. The movie has also been nominated at the Golden Globe Award.
In 2013, Cristian Mungiu was part of the official competition jury at the 66th edition of the Cannes Film Festival, chaired by the director and producer Steven Spielberg. The cinematographer Cristian Mungiu offers, through his realistic films, a gateway to personal answers to the deepest turmoils of our souls and our society's altogether, though mostly perceived as harsh and rough.