Cristian Mungiu began by recalling that his first contact with art was not through cinema, but through the written word. “I first started thinking about stories, about storytelling, not about cinema,” he said. As a child, in a family where everyone talked a lot, he felt compelled to write: “My father talked, my mother talked, my sister talked… and I, being the youngest, had no room. So I decided to write down what I had to say for later.” This inclination led him to study literature and work as a journalist in the 1980s, before the fall of communism in 1989 pushed him toward film. “We never thought communism would fall, and when it did all my friends told me: if you always said you wanted to make films, now is the time.”
In film school he stood out for his discipline: “When we had to hand in a script, I didn’t have one, I had three. And that made the difference.” He also gained practical experience working as an assistant on foreign productions: “I was on sets with French and American directors, and that taught me what the faculty couldn’t.” His first feature was an odyssey of scarcity and perseverance: he began shooting without enough money and the budget ran out midway through. “We did what everyone does in that situation: start anyway, hoping something comes up. And indeed, the money ran out.” With partial support from Rotterdam and the National Film Center he managed to finish, and the film eventually made it to Cannes, even if “eight of us were sleeping in one room 40 km from the festival.”
A key experience in his career was his encounter with Dennis Hopper, who invited him to rewrite a script in North Carolina. “He told me: ‘I’m leaving Monday, can you come with me to rewrite this?’ I replied: I need a visa. And Hopper called the embassy. When I went to get my visa, everyone was saying: ‘this is the guy Dennis Hopper called about.’” He spent weeks at Hopper’s house, writing and listening to unforgettable anecdotes. The main lesson was strategic: “I realized I would have a better chance of being noticed if I stayed in Romania, like a chicken with red wings in a small yard, rather than being just another unknown Eastern European in the U.S.”
The triumph with 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days marked a turning point. “Never before or after have I had that certainty: I felt I was filming something strong.” The buzz grew until Cannes selected it, and it finally won the Palme d’Or. The impact in Romania was historic: “Suddenly everyone was saying it was the historic moment of Romanian cinema. They even broadcast the ceremony live in Romania, with my former professor commenting on television.” But what he remembers most is the pressure: “The whole ceremony I kept thinking: what do I say if I go on stage? I didn’t want to just say ‘mom, dad, I won.’” After the award, Hollywood agents tried to lure him: “Everyone was telling me: come, sign, here you can do whatever you want. But I was thinking: will I make the films I want, or the films they want?” In the end, he chose to stay: “For me it is more important to be truthful than to be famous or rich.”
Aesthetic and ethical reflection was central to the masterclass. For Mungiu, “the story you tell matters as much as the means you use to tell it.” His style is defined by the absence of music and minimal cutting: “I don’t want the viewer to feel the director is saying: now you should feel this.” He relies on long takes because “cinema is, along with music, the only art capable of showing the passage of time… but only if you don’t cut.” This choice, he admitted, makes his cinema “difficult, dry, demanding,” but he considers it more honest: “The style may be dry and difficult, but it is more honest.”
In Venice he also spoke about his book Una vita romena, dedicated to his grandmother Tania. “I grew up with her at home, and I always felt she carried a permanent sadness. When she said ‘my home,’ she meant the house she had lost in 1940.” For years he gathered her memories to make sure they would not be lost: “I decided to write it as a book, not just notes, so that my children would know her story.” The account took on new meaning with the war in Ukraine: “I realized my grandparents were right: next to an empire, war always comes back.” He recalled the dilemma of 1940, when the Soviets gave 24 hours to leave Bessarabia: “What do you do? Do you stay with your house or do you flee? My family decided to stay. That was the end: they arrested my great-grandfather, shot my grandmother’s brother, deported her to Siberia… only she survived.”
Beyond his films, Mungiu shared his commitment to cinema as a cultural institution. He founded his own production company, organized festivals, and set up touring screenings to fill the void of cinemas in Romania: “I bought a truck with a projector and a screen and organized a tour through 30 cities. I thought it would be a wake-up call for politicians about the lack of infrastructure… but they never did anything. My extreme example became the norm.” He admitted these tasks consumed much of his time: “While making my films, I was also raising my children and trying to save cinema in Romania.”
On his way of filming, he explained his decision to use handheld cameras: “A tripod is less human. The slight vibration of the camera is closer to how we perceive reality, with small movements, with instant decisions.” He underlined the ethical dimension of his technical choices: “Even if it’s difficult, I prefer to create a real moment in front of the camera and record it, rather than recreating it with cuts. It’s more truthful.”
He closed the masterclass with an intimate piece of advice, tied to family memory: “I always tell young people: talk to your grandparents and parents today, not tomorrow. You think you have time, but you don’t. They will be gone before you decide to ask them.” A phrase that encapsulates the essence of his work: a cinema of rigor and memory, where aesthetic honesty and historical responsibility are inseparable.
