Cinema Under Fire: Romania

What forces are threatening filmmakers’ freedoms? In a series of contributions from international film critics, Filmkrant reports on the political and economical forces at work on national film production and culture. This month: Romania, where the future of the national cinema is uncertain despite dazzling international success.

There’s a saying among Romanian cultural workers: “Culture is our Cinderella.” Amid the rise of far-right movements in the country, cuts to the Ministry of Culture’s already measly budget, and EU-wide plans to dramatically increase military spending, it feels like poor Cinderella is about to lose her one remaining shoe. Which, of course, spells trouble for a national cinema still reeling from the long-term effects of the pandemic and struggling to redefine itself after its leading artistic movement, the Romanian New Wave, has – depending on who you ask – either ended completely or entered a fragile secondary phase.

The country’s protracted political crisis has now entered its fourth month, following the cancellation of the 2024 presidential election due to massive electoral interference by Călin Georgescu, a previously unknown supporter of Romania’s interbellum fascist movement with strong pro-Russian beliefs, who unexpectedly became the frontrunner. There is a widespread sense that the current government – hastily installed when the new Parliament went into session, and recycling some of the “same olds” – lacks proper legitimacy and is fumbling through the stasis that seems to have gripped the country.

While the failure of Georgescu’s renewed run for the Presidency recently saw his supporters descend into violent protests on the streets of Bucharest, it offered a sense of momentary relief for many others. Still, most cultural workers feel their future is completely uncertain, even looking at the second half of 2025. By then, the country is expected to have its first new president in over a decade and hopefully a more stable government; however, it is anybody’s guess if Romania will manage to avert falling victim to far-right illiberalism, as many of its neighbors in Central and Eastern Europe have. All the while, producers, distributors, festival programmers, cinema managers, magazine publishers, and all sorts of other film workers are trying to keep things going.

One thing is certain: the country’s current leadership is preparing for harsh austerity measures, and has slashed the Ministry of Culture’s budget (already one of the lowest in the EU, in terms of % of GDP) by around €4 million. According to former Minister of Culture Raluca Turcan, the impact on the film industry will be devastating: only around €10 million will be allocated for cinema, a figure she claims is “well below the necessary sums [of €38 million] for budget credits and [€55 million] for committed credits.” It doesn’t take a degree in economics to realize that the Romanian government’s entire commitment to the film industry is a mere fraction of the budget for a single Hollywood blockbuster.

Inertia
Naturally, the end of a political decade prompts reflection on the changes it brought. Over the past ten years, contemporary Romanian cinema has stayed true to its origins, soldiering on despite staggering economic challenges and a growing rift between filmmakers with international success and local audiences. It’s a paradox: the more international awards Romanian filmmakers brought home, the less interest their home crowds seemed to have. In hindsight, this can be seen as an early sign of rising far-right Euroscepticism, as arthouse filmmakers, while often creating highly political works, increasingly came to be represented and seen as part of an elite artistic class disconnected from the tastes and demands of the general public.

This divide was further capitalized on in the aftermath of the pandemic, as local YouTube stars – following a global trend – created feature-length B-movie comedies that broke longstanding domestic box office records. One example is Teambuilding (Matei Dima, 2022), a corporate satire in the style of a battle royale, which became the best-selling Romanian film since the early 2000s and went on to break domestic streaming records. Teambuilding sparked what appears to be a true renaissance of the form, with dozens of similar films following in its wake. As much as it pains me to admit, this trend – which has brought forth some excruciatingly bad pieces of cinema – is one of the most significant phenomenons to have emerged in Romanian cinema over the last decade. Not least because these films have rekindled public interest in cinema, reversing a longstanding decline in audience numbers. Since every film ticket sold in the country includes a tax that directly funds filmmaking grants, one must applaud these terrible comedies for indirectly supporting recent arthouse darlings.

Speaking of taxes, the past decade has also seen a growing frustration with the public financing system, led by the Romanian Film Center (CNC). A sizable part of the industry has been dissatisfied with the institution’s longtime director, Anca Mitran, whose rare public statements often spark outrage. One such example was her controversial 2022 assertion that documentaries shouldn’t be released in cinemas, prompting protests and calls for resignation from veteran filmmakers like Andrei Ujică and Dana Bunescu. The institution has also been heavily criticized for refusing to implement gender quotas and for systematically under-representing women, both in its selection committees and in the films that it supports. Furthermore, in what was arguably its most damaging act, the institution all but “disappeared” during the height of the pandemic in 2020, when, in violation of its own legal obligations, it failed to post an open call for projects – leaving an already struggling industry, whose pleas to the office of the Prime Minister had fallen on deaf ears, feeling abandoned by the authorities.

Another point of contention is the legal framework governing the country’s cinema financing. Over the past ten years, there have been several attempts to overhaul the outdated 2005 cinema law, which even sparked protests in 2016 and in 2017. However, a breakthrough appears to have been reached in late 2024, when the government passed an ordinance that promises to address many of the issues the industry has long been decrying. One key change is that all public financing for film production is now non-refundable, as very few films from the past twenty years had managed to repay their grants. The previous clause had led to considerable legal complications and misunderstandings for local producers, who were forced to hand over the rights to their films to the CNC if they failed to repay their grants within ten years.

Another significant change is the redefinition of the criteria for so-called “difficult” films. Previously, this was used as a catch-all term for non-commercial cinema, encompassing most of the Romanian films that make their way to international festivals, with a definition based on general, subjective factors such as “narrative innovation” and “experimental style”. The new law introduces clear and precise criteria, such as distribution potential, genre, budget, and the filmmaker’s track record. This seemingly small adjustment could represent a major shift in the production of independent, artistically-driven films and could offer a much-needed launchpad for emerging filmmakers, who were at a disadvantage under the old financing rules.

A final positive development is the creation of the Office for Film and Cultural Investments (OFIC), whose primary goal is to rejuvenate the country’s long-struggling cash rebate scheme and revitalize Romania’s once-thriving co-production scene. Since the fall of the communist regime, Romania has attracted many foreign productions, in no small part due to the historical region of Transylvania, which filmmaker used, of course, as a backdrop for horror and genre films – recent examples include Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu and Tim Burton’s Wednesday.

However, there are concerns that this film financing law could be misused should power fall into the wrong hands, triggering traumas of political repression and censorship under the national-communist regime. During the late 2010s, under nationalist-populist Liviu Dragnea’s shadow rule, the Ministry of Culture’s name was officially changed to include the term “National Identity.” At the same time, a special grant was created for historical films celebrating Romania’s Centennial, prompting fears of political interference in cinema: the controversial decision was seen by some as a nationalist maneuver, harking back to the Ceaușescu regime’s use of historical films as propaganda to promote its revisionist views of Romanian history. One particular provision in the cinema law, Article 58, that specifies which scripts are barred from competing for public funds, has caused anxiety, as it mentions “film projects that promote the defamation of the country or nation, the rule of law, or constitutional principles”, which could be interpreted in bad faith by certain political actors, especially considering that many Romanian films include critical socio-political themes.

On top of this, the Romanian film industry remains akin to an oligarchy, with power concentrated in the hands of a select few figures – many of them directors doubling as producers, distributors, and/or festival directors. Tudor Giurgiu, for example, practically controls an empire: he is a film director, runs production company Librafilm, is the president of the Transylvania International Film Festival (Romania’s largest and only FIAPF-certified festival), owns distribution company Transilvania Film and runs the Gopo Awards, a ceremony similar to the Césars in France or Goya’s in Spain. (Last year, controversy erupted when Giurgiu’s own Freedom won the majority of awards, triumphing over Radu Jude’s Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World.) However, no-one dares mention this vertical integration, in fear of reprisals if they criticize the power imbalances. Meanwhile, almost everyone in the industry is connected to these key players and truly independent cinema is virtually non-existent.

Breaking the New Wave
In this complex landscape, one auteur has emerged as a guiding figure in contemporary Romanian cinema: Radu Jude. His ascendance comes in the wake of Romanian New Wave, a wave which had surged in 2016. In that year, both Cristian Mungiu and Cristi Puiu – the movements golden child and godfather – were selected in competition at the Cannes Film Festival (with Graduation and Sieranevada), marking the only time in history that multiple Romanian directors competed for the Palme d’Or.

Jude’s prolific, provocative, and formally chameleonic body of work has struck a chord with cinephiles worldwide. His films represent a shift away from the stark, austere realism of the 2000s, moving into more formally playful territory. His work deconstructs the boundaries between fiction and non-fiction, reintroduces genre tropes while simultaneously subverting them through meta-cinematic devices, and makes extensive use of archival and found footage. Jude’s rise to international recognition was gradual but steady – first a Silver Bear in Berlin for Aferim! (2015), then Locarno’s Crystal Globe for I Do Not Care if We Go Down in History as Barbarians (2018). However, it was his 2021 Golden Bear win for Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn – widely regarded as one of the defining films of the pandemic – that catapulted him to widespread international acclaim. His 2023 epic Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World, which tackles late-stage capitalism and exploitation, further solidified his reputation as one of the most vital directors of our time.

Jude’s rise to an international powerhouse (which recently earned him a mention from Martin Scorsese himself) has arguably been Romanian cinema’s finest achievement since 2016. And despite a number of local detractors – most of whom are on the right-hand side of the political aisle – and his professional split with long-term producer Ada Solomon (the country’s leading film producer, both locally and internationlly), he shows no signs of slowing down. Last February he added a third Bear to his collection with Kontinental ‘25, and he’s now prepping the release of his long-gestating vampire satire Dracula Park.

Although Jude has hogged the spotlight, it should be notes that a new wave of Romanian arthouse cinema has emerged since 2017, including numerous debut films. Ivana Mladenovic’s Soldiers (2017) marked Romanian cinema’s opening both to female directors (as the Romanian New Wave was predominantly male, with exceptions like Ana Lungu and Melissa de Raaf gaining much less of a foothold) and to queer themes. A watershed moment followed shortly after, when Adina Pintilie’s Touch Me Not, a film many years in the making, won the Golden Bear in 2018. The groundbreaking work tackles topics such as post-traumatic healing, body acceptance, and queer intersubjectivity, all within a hybrid, self-reflexive cinematic form long before such topics gained traction, even in international cinema. Other notable debut filmmakers from this period of time include Marius Olteanu (Monsters, 2019), Ruxandra Ghițescu (Otto the Barbarian, 2020), Alina Grigore (Blue Moon, 2021), Monica Stan (Immaculate, 2022), Eugen Jebeleanu (Poppy Field, 2022) and Sarra Tsorakidis (Ink Wash, 2024).

While it’s exciting to witness a new generation of directors emerging after the decline of Romanian New Wave, it’s not without its challenges. Many of the directors mentioned above have struggled to follow up on their debuts, as the pandemic’s disproportionate impact on younger, less experienced filmmakers is still felt today, especially among women, who continue to face numerous invisible barriers. One contributing factor may be that, despite several high-profile cases of abuse being exposed in the press, Romania’s film industry has yet to experience its own MeToo moment, even as accounts from women, queer individuals, Roma, students, and workers from underprivileged backgrounds reveal widespread emotional, psychological, and sexual abuse within the industry.

However, there is some hope, due to the tireless, committed work of feminist collective F-Sides. Founded in 2020 by Ioana Diaconu, Alexandra Lulache, and Georgiana Vrăjitoru, F-Sides began as both a cineclub focused exclusively on female-directed cinema and a think tank for research on gender equality in Romanian cinema. It has since grown into a large platform bringing together a nationwide network of film clubs, providing space for writers exploring feminist topics in cinema and art, and facilitating a comittee dedicated to eliminating abuse and inequality from the industry. While Romanian professionals, much like they did in the early 2000s, often feel isolated and competitive, F-Sides has become a driving force in the local industry that is building community, fostering connections, and working toward a better future for all in Romanian cinema.

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Flavia Dima is a film critic, programmer, translator, and researcher based in Bucharest. Her work has been published in outlets such as Indiewire, MUBI Notebook, Sabzian, Reverse Shot, Filmmaker Magazine, and Outskirts.

A Dutch translation of this article was published in Filmkrant #478, April 2025.