Catalin Cristutiu

Orsolya is a bailiff in Cluj, the main city in Transylvania. One day she has to evict a homeless man from a cellar, an action with tragic consequences that triggers a moral crisis which Orsolya must weather as best she can.

On behalf of a multinational company, a production assistant drives around the Romanian city of Bucharest, interviewing various citizens who have been injured due to work accidents to cast one of them in a “safety at work” video.

It was 1978 and the Romanian dictator Ceausescu was in control of the country. Artists were being prosecuted and isolated due to their "unacceptable" background and views. Amongst them stood the extremely talented musician Rodion Rosca. Although he was a radio star, his debut album was never released.

Cristina, a mid 30s secretary living in an alienating and hostile Bucharest, is trying to understand what it means being a bills-paying, ready-to-settle, social-ladder-climbing adult while still desperately wanting to be a good child for the single mom that raised her. She is also a character in a novel that a theatre director is turning into a feature. As the actors start setting into the story, their individual backgrounds, social circumstances and personal motivations begin to overlap with the fiction they were offered, making it their own, questioning it and shaping it. The result is what it’s supposed to be: a playful mesh of perceived reality and fabrication.

A young Romanian woman living in France works for a French family and joins a theatre company who are adapting Octave Mirbeau's The Diary of a Chambermaid.

An animated feature-length documentary telling the story of the life of Crulic, a 33 year-old Romanian accused of having stolen a wallet from an important Polish judge. Crulic was brought to the Krakow Detention Center Custody prison. He decided to start a hunger strike from the day he was arrested, demanding a meeting with somebody from the Romanian Consulate.

A young man trying to solve the puzzle of his father's last moments rattles the life of a quiet town and unburies unwanted truths. His compulsive quest becomes a downward spiral of love, lust and lies.

In modern-day Transylvania, vampire hunts and labor strikes collide with sci-fi twists, romance, and AI-crafted tales, as multiple storylines blend folklore, classic horror, and contemporary elements into a fresh take on Dracula's legend.

A Romanian police officer teams up with a small crew of bank robbers to pull off a heist by convincing everyone at the scene of the crime that they are only filming a movie.

A man becomes lured into a fictional game his ex-girlfriend has initiated. Sexually ensnared by her, and now realizing the fragility of the border between the real and the imagined, he begins to unravel. He convinces himself that if he can only write an ending to his life story, he can regain control of his life. But playing with fiction is not an innocent game…

"I do not care if we go down in history as barbarians." These words, spoken in the Council of Ministers of the summer of 1941, started the ethnic cleansing on the Eastern Front. The film attempts to comment on this statement.

Vintage pornography reels from the archives of Italy’s National Film Museum display over an AI recitation of Dante's The Divine Comedy.

A found-footage documentary assembled exclusively out of post-socialist Romanian advertisements, this brings together these documents of Romania’s long transition period, they are made to speak about life, love and death, about the body and human frailty, about nature and the supernatural, about recent history, and, of course, about socialism and capitalism.

During the 1980s, the American journalist Edward Serotta documented the harsh realities and Jewish life in socialist Romania. The secret services clandestinely accompanied him on his journey. A photo essay from opposing perspectives.

Infidelity drama, male egos, lost dogs in Startsladden favorite Stefan Constantinescu’s arthouse gem about a man consumed by jealousy who risks losing everything while searching for the truth.

Delia, a young Romanian girl, comes to Bucharest with her parents to collect a prize she has won in a contest organized by a soft-drinks company. The prize is a beautiful new car. All Delia has to do now is appear in front of the camera in a commercial. All goes well until it becomes clear that Delia and her parents have very different ideas about what to do with the new car. Meanwhile, the contest's sponsor needs a radiant prize-winner with a gleaming smile. A wicked satire and a psychological portrait of a society perverted by its slavery to capitalism and consumerism

Adi (40), a shy and introverted anthropologist who got recently dumped by his girlfriend, moves to Ferentari, most notorious outcasted neighborhood in Bucharest. He wants to write a study on manele music. The pop music of the Roma community serves as a way out for some, but mostly as one more means for the mafia pimps to make money off their acts and keep them in slave-like dependency. While researching his subject, Adi meets Alberto, a Roma ex-convict and a bear of a man, who promises Adi to help him. Soon, the unlikely pair begins a playful romance in which Adi feeds Alberto with improbable plans of escaping poverty and Alberto reciprocates with well-concocted phrases of love. Little by little their casual affair grows into love. And the funny and sweet teasing turns into something precarious, since Alberto is both dangerous and fragile and belongs to a world whose codes Adi doesn't understand.

A humble Romanian actor in his 40's, hardly surviving between a complicated part in a musical, a depressed wife, and the obsession of an imminent, devastating earthquake, becomes the victim of his manipulative father.

Akam, a young literature teacher, lives a comfortable life in Oslo until his estranged uncle from the Iranian part of Kurdistan comes for a surprise visit. Despite limited space in his shared flat with friends, Akam feels obligated to invite his uncle to stay for a few days. However, his uncle quickly makes himself at home and shows no sign of leaving anytime soon. Torn between his sense of familial duty and growing tension in the flat, Akam begins to suspect there's more to his uncle's visit than just a casual trip. What follows is a series of revelations and unexpected events that could have life changing consequences for them both.

In 1981, chalk slogans written in uppercase letters started appearing in public spaces in the Romanian city of Botoşani. They demanded freedom, alluded to the democratic developments taking place in Romania’s socialist sister countries or simply called for improvements in the food supply. Mugur Călinescu was behind them, who was still at school at the time and whose case is documented in the files of the Romanian secret police. Theatre director Gianina Cărbunariu created a documentary play based on this material.

Film student Cătălina teams up with ex-rock star Marchizu' to film his comeback music video, but his resemblance to a childhood nightmare begins to blur reality. The encounter makes her question her memory and identity.

Marius is a divorced man in his late thirties. His five year-old daughter Sofia lives with her mother, which causes Marius a deep frustration. On the day Marius arrives to take his daughter on their annual holiday, he is told that she is ill but he doesn't believe it and insists to take her with him. The situation soon gets out of control with all the family taking part in a web of humor, violence, childish songs, police interventions and love statements.

Every year on August 29 ("since the world and the earth", says a local in the film), the village of Nisipuri is celebrating: there is a bâlci whose spirit has gone all over the south of the country. The locals are very proud of their town, at least until they come to the comparison of the past with the present, when the balance inevitably tilts in favor of the former term. The documentary captures—through hand-held footage and long shots (let's not forget that the cinematographer is Andrei Butica)—the day before the big day, the preparations, the actual event, and... the breaking of the fair.

The documentary follows and underground benevolent network of people who are buying chemotherapy drugs abroad and transporting them to Romanian patients, since in Romania chemotherapy drugs are not available.