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You are here because you want to read articles about the places you can visit while you're traveling to and through Romania. Enjoy your stay and have a look through our articles about the Romanian culture, history and tourist attractions.
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- Eugen Ionesco – Fighting The Absurd With Its Own WeaponsAna Aslan – The Fight Against AgingNadia Comaneci – The Mark of PerfectionBlack Tourism in RomaniaRomanian Comedy PlaysHenri Coanda – Father of the JetGopo – A Romanian Walt DisneyGeorge Emil Palade – The Romanian Nobel PrizeRomanian Touches In World CulturePetrache Poenaru – Inventor Of The Fountain PenEmil Racovita – A Scientist With A Taste For AdventureUnforgettable Romanian MoviesThe Story of The LipovansJean Negulesco – A Romanian at HollywoodThe Romanian Book MarketMihai Eminescu – the Genius of Romanian LiteratureRomania’s Eye for ArtMaria Tănase – the Voice of Romanian FolkloreTraditional Hand Made Crafts Fair in OradeaPetreus Brothers“Police, adjective” – Another Memorable Movie by Corneliu PorumboiuBranding RomaniaReaping Dreams with Paula SelingThe Concert Market in RomaniaTransylvania Film Festival – Celebrating Film for 8 YearsOina – Romanian baseballBoogie – One Movie, an Universal StoryIndependenta Romaniei, The First Romanian Full Length MovieBucharest Days – Taking a Walk Through Bucharest’s History
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Unforgettable Romanian Movies
An appreciated and somehow controversial Romanian director is Sergiu Nicolaescu (born 1930). He is best known for his historical movies, altough he didn’t avoided other genres as well. Some statistics rate him as the best battle scene director in the world: he shoots 70-80 m of useful shots, while the average is 12-15 m.
Dacii appeared in 1967 and, because it was a Romanian-French co-production, it was very popular in the Western countries. A young Roman nobleman is captured during Emperor Domitianus’ attempt to conquer Dacia in 88 A.D. He gets to know the indigenous population, falls in love with a local girl and gradually discoveres he may have Dacian origins. The action also involves plot twists, conspiracies to overthrow the emperor and large scale battles. The director, who benefitted from the help of numerous soldier units, who acted as collective stunts, was able to orchestrate spectacular scenes, in a time with no digital special effects available.
He produced and directed an even more impressive historical drama, Mihai Viteazul, several years later, in 1970. The movie, recounting the life of Wallachia’s ruler who united the Romanian countries for the first time in history in 1600, has all the traits of blockbusters such as Cleopatra or Spartacus. It has larger than life characters, rich costumes, even more spectacular battle scenes than those in Dacii and a tragic story.
After the succes Dacii had enjoyed, Columbia Pictures offered Sergiu Nicolaescu the opportunity of directing an international co-production, with a four million dollars budget and that would have starred Orson Welles as emperor Rudolf, Laurence Harvey as Sultan Murad III, Richard Burton as Sigismund Bathory and Charlton Heston as Mihai Viteazul, but Nicolae Ceausescu refused and ordered the movie to be entirely Romanian. Some historical battles (Calugareni or Selimbar) were filmed in the places were the actual armed struggles took place.
To this day, Mihai Viteazul has remained one the best sold Romanian movies. The great actor Amza Pellea (1931 – 1983) and Sergiu Nicolaescu would collaborate for several other productions. "Atunci i-am condamnat pe toti la moarte "(1971) – That was when I condemned all to death - is a strange story about innocence, sacrifice and hypocrisy. A German soldier is killed in an occupied village from Transylvania, during the Second World War. The village leaders are given an ultimatum: they will surrender the killer, otherwise the community will face mass executions. The only person willing to sacrifice himself is Ipu, the village’s idiot; in exchange, he asks for some land for his family and a showy funeral. The story is seen through the eyes of a child, who experiences a paradox: he witnesses how a short-minded person everyone laughs at is more unselfish that the village’s respected grown-ups.
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