Cristian mungiu biography of williams
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“It’s important to keep on searching, to arrive on set with the idea that you don’t know what the best way of doing things will be. If you are going in the right direction, the film speaks to you. It’s more honest this way. Cinema is really a question of honesty.“
“It is not the subject that matters, it isn’t the story, it is the way it is done. It’s a new way of making films, a simpler way. Directly relating the experiences we have instead of just picking the kind of story that people expect. There are many stereotypes going around in film today. I don’t feel I have to feed them.“
Born: 27 April 1968, Iași, Romania.
Directing career: 2002 –
Movement: Romanian New Wave.
Traits: Like his Romanian New Wave peers, Mungiu is interested in exploring the post-Communism legacy of institutions and social systems, typically focusing on characters finding themselves stuck within ethical or moral dilemmas out of whi
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‘R.M.N.’ Director Cristian Mungiu on Xenophobia and the Dangers of “Politically Correct” Filmmaking
Romanian auteur Cristian Mungiu is a master of the slow-burn drama. His careful cinematic style — using bred master shots and long takes, allowing the action to play out within the frame without edits — is put to service in exploring complex, hot-button social issues — abortion in his 2007 Palme d’Or winner 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, state corruption in 2016’s Graduation — with a calm, almost scientific precision.
Mungiu’s latest, R.M.N., takes this scientific approach literally. The title is the Romanian acronym for an MRI, which one of the characters receives in the spelfilm, and the movie, which hits U.S. cinemas on April 28, is Mungiu’s cinematic brain scan of his country, revealing the layers of illness — racial, social, political, and above all emotional — buried in the national
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My Cannes Moment: Cristian Mungiu
It was my first time in competition, so I was told I could either go on the first day or the last day. We decided to go for day one, thinking we’d smash them hard in the beginning and create an impression, even if everyone would forget the film two days later.
But after two days, people were still talking about the film. I was asked to stay another day and another day. I could hear people talking about the film on the street, at parties. I gave interview after interview. We started hoping we might win something.
Then came the awards, and the festival asked me to stay on. At the ceremony, it started to look like we might win the Palme d’Or. I was so stressed! The stakes were so high, I got a terrible headache. When they said my name, I completely blanked out. I went onstage but I missed the whole moment — I was just trying to focus, to say something intelligent and not behave like a monkey.
Looking back, it fee