Biography

Cristian Mungiu was born on April 27, 1968 in Iasi, Romania. He is a producer and writer, known for 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2007), Graduation (2016) and Beyond the Hills (2012).

After studying English literature at the University of Iasi, he worked as a teacher and as a journalist for some years.

First Romanian director to win the Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival, for 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (2007).

He was born into a doctor's family. His sister Alina Mungiu-Pippidi is a noted political analyst.

Member of the 'Official Competition' jury at the 66th Cannes International Film Festival in 2013.

In 2003 Cristian Mungiu founded together with director/writer/actor/musician Hanno Höfer and cinematographer Oleg Mutu the production company 'Mobra Films'.

Member of the 'Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' (AMPAS) since 2016.

President of the 'Official Competition' jury at the 20th Shanghai International Film Festival in 2017.

Works with the European Commission in reshaping European legislation on cinema. The aim is to create a European VOD platform open to the rest of the world [2018].

President of the jury at the Cannes Critics' Week competition in 2021.

I had the experience of working on a film for somebody else, on a foreign production. They were very nice people, but I discovered it is very difficult for me to have somebody else interfere with my film. I wouldn't like to work on anything unless I have complete control.

[on his creative process] In between films I have very long periods in which I am completely clueless about what I want to do next. I have no idea whatsoever where to start. I start having these ideas of maybe I don't know anything about cinema, that I am completely stupid and incapable of doing anything relevant. I'm not this happy, fortunate sort of guy who takes a shower, socialises and is then struck by an idea. I spend weeks and months in the office, thinking, even if I don't write anything. I read books, watch films, talk to people - it can be very frustrating but eventually a spark comes.[2015]

[on his biography] I never had a proper education about films. You have to place this in the context in which I lived. I lived in the 70s and 80s in Romania. I'm not from Bucharest. I'm not from the capital. I'm from a town of half a million inhabitants with a lot of universities [Iasi]. There were some seven cinemas, although not one is left today, but we didn't have a cinematheque. Later on in the 1980s, when I was a teenager, I had a more privileged relationship with cinema through VCRs. VCRs were like a goldmine to have at the end of the communist era. I started watching a lot of films and then showing them in private screenings and even translating them - but it was chaotic and unplanned. All of sudden this unexpected thing happened [the Romanian Revolution 1989]. Even if we were aware of what was happening in Eastern Germany and all the Eastern countries we couldn't figure out how it would happen in Romania. The system was so strong and the secret police were so powerful and had been in place for so long and the whole reality was so distorted. We were all listening to Radio Free Europe. We knew what was going on but it still it came as a surprise. I kept working in the press in my hometown because it was a very burning period and it was interesting time to be in the press. People were stopping you on the street, asking you to tell them the truth after years and years in which the press had been distorted. In four years of studying [in the 1990's at the film school in Bucharest] we never went beyond the 1940s. They didn't have any copies of the films we were studying - it was theoretical. The tutors had a wonderful energy and passion but if you don't watch the films it's impossible to understand what they're talking about I came out of [film] school with very little knowledge of cinema history. [Screendaily 2015]

[on his biography] I had to do something to avoid going into the army at eighteen, so I studied philosophy and then became a journalist and teacher in my hometown. After the fall of communism, I kept working for a few years but finally had no excuse and said if this is what I want to do I can do it now. So I moved to Bucharest and studied film, and moved up from there.[2014]

In the end it takes so much from your life to make a film, it's a little bit like falling in love. It's happened to you before, and you know that you would like it to happen again and you know what kind of girl you like, but you can't really make it happen exactly when you want it or how you want it. You have to be prepared for it to happen, and when it happens it happens. [2014]

[Masterclass in Doha, Qatar] Ask why you are making the film, for whom you are making it. Ask if the film matters to them and what kind of film you want to make. Unless you know the answers to these questions, you cannot advance. And once you have found the answers, you will find the precise tools to make the right filmmaking decision.[2015]

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.[2013]

[Beyond the Hills (2012)] Working as a journalist, of course, had an influence because as you can see with the subject of this film, I've preserved this taste for very strong stories. As a journalist, you feel this would interest people, so I'm reading the newspapers everyday, just for my pleasure. But very often I find stories that are really interesting, so I'm just keeping them, lacing them together for the moment when I start writing. There's something else that helped me from my period working as a journalist - a style of storytelling, a style I first created in words. When I write, I don't make any comment. I never start with me seeing something. It's always about something happening. I describe what happens and then I preserve this style in the writing of screenplays and later on in the style of shooting.[2013]

[on Graduation (2016)] There is anxiety when you feel guilty about the decisions you make: when not all the decisions you make are moral, when you are hiding the truth from others. You will have the illusion that people are following you, that your conscience is always behind you. This is what it means to take the wrong step into the world of compromise: a lot of aggression and anxiety. Compromise starts really early in Romania. There is always conflict when you accept compromise. And once it starts it is unstoppable. (...) If you tolerate your own compromise you will tolerate the compromise around you. You will lose the moral power to speak out, because deep inside you know you have done something that is not so moral. We all complain in Romania about the level of corruption without understanding that we are responsible for it. [2016]

[on Graduation (2016)] We have lost ten percent of our most brilliant youth in the last decade. Parents want to send their children abroad. The top students are accepted abroad to study [just like the girl in the film] and go. It is a problem. It is a problem if all the trained and intelligent people leave the country. [2016]

[official statement as 'Cinéfondation' president] Value and originality have never achieved easy recognition in the cinema. And it's even harder to recognize the value and originality of very young directors. The Cinéfondation has always given young directors the help and recognition they needed at the very outset of their career, so that they could express themselves with courage and find their own voice. [March 2017]

[press conference for Graduation (2016) at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival] I hope it's universal. People have asked me a lot of questions about that. I don't think it's a film on Romania only - I try to make films on human nature, moral dilemmas that people may encounter in a given point in their lives. I talk about people from my generation - this is one of the most important problems; you need to know how you're going to bring up your children, what ethical values you're going to give them. It's very important this, in Romania. You have to take a decision that's probably the most important decision you'll be taking for your children, you have to decide what you're going to do with your children, what advice to give them - to stay or to leave? We were born during the Communist era, we struggled, we fought to change things, but people say, "Well, how many generations should be sacrificed for a given country?" It's hard when you're talking to your children to find the right answer.

[Cannes press conference for R.M.N. (2022)] For me, in this film, Transylvania stands for something; that very distant place that you don't know much about, where there's a melting-pot of ethnic groups of people living together and I hope that the audience will get that it's not yet again a story about what happens in Romania and it's not just about these people - I didn't have the time to read the press - but whenever journalists just interpret that it's yet again another sombre painting of this country; well, it's not about that country, or not only about that country at all for me, and it's good to check your own elections in your own countries to see that we don't only talk about Romania. But of course things need to happen somewhere and for us they happen in Transylvania because Transylvania represents very well this territory which passed from one country to the other, where people had to live with people of different background and different religions. It was very interesting for us to scout in Transylvania and in every different village there are from three to six different churches and congregations - of course, all the villages are deserted now because everybody left - everybody works abroad, which makes things even more sad. But at the same time the culture, the civilisation of these people stayed, and it's impregnated in everything from habits to architecture and we were scouting a lot to find a village that won't contradict what we wanted to say, in the sense that this a true story that happened, which is also part of the inspiration for this film. I started by checking that village in particular, but we decided not to shoot there, to look for some other village and then we started checking out the ethnicity of the people in certain areas just to make sure that we speak about something which is correct and truthful and we came out with this village and I hope it stands a lot for what trying to live along together with the others means.