Transylvania is a historical and cultural region in Central Europe, encompassing central Romania. To the east and south its natural border is the Carpathian Mountains and to the west the Apuseni Mountains. Broader definitions of Transylvania also include the western and northwestern Romanian regions of Crișana and Maramureș, and occasionally Banat. Historical Transylvania also includes small parts of neighbouring Western Moldavia and even a small part of south-western neighbouring Bukovina to its north east. The capital of the region is Cluj-Napoca.
George "Gigi" Becali is a Romanian businessman, writer and former politician and convict, mostly known for his ownership of the FCSB football club.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in Romania may face legal challenges and discrimination not experienced by non-LGBT residents. Attitudes in Romania are generally conservative, with regard to the rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender citizens. Nevertheless, the country has made significant changes in LGBT rights legislation since 2000. In the past two decades, it fully decriminalised homosexuality, introduced and enforced wide-ranging anti-discrimination laws, equalised the age of consent and introduced laws against homophobic hate crimes. Furthermore, LGBT communities have become more visible in recent years, as a result of events such as Bucharest's annual pride parade and Cluj-Napoca's Gay Film Nights festival.
ACCEPT is a non-governmental organization that advocates for the rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in Romania. It is based in Bucharest and also acts as the Romanian representative at ILGA-Europe. The organisation also advocates on behalf of individuals with HIV-AIDS and carries out several programs to encourage safe sex.
Bucharest Pride, known previously as GayFest, is the annual festival dedicated to LGBT rights in Romania, taking place in Bucharest for nearly a week. Current event organizer is Kyle David Kipp. It first took place in 2004 and now occurs in May–June of each year, culminating with the March of Diversity. It is organised by the non-profit organisation ACCEPT, the country's largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights organisation. The festival also receives funding from the Romanian Ministry of Health and the National Council for Combating Discrimination, as well as a number of private organisations, such as the Open Society Institute and the British Council in Romania.
Be An Angel Romania (BAAR) is a Romanian human rights organisation based in Cluj-Napoca founded by Lucian Dunăreanu, an LGBT rights activist. Although the organisation's mission is to combat discrimination in Romanian society in all its forms, its main field of activity is in LGBT rights and dealing with discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
GayOne is an online LGBT portal and news service in the Romanian language. The current website was founded in 2005, as the successor to the 2G.ro portal, the first of its kind in Romania. GayOne.ro provides frequently-updated LGBT news in Romanian, with a focus both on Romanian and worldwide gay issues. Although the publication does not have a printed form, it is one of the most utilised sources of news for Romania's LGBT community, and in 2006 was awarded the prize for "Best medium of information for the LGBT community" at Be An Angel's Gay Prize Gala, which took place during the Gay Film Nights Festival and is intended to recognise those who have contributed to LGBT culture and rights throughout the year.
Switch was a Romanian LGBT magazine. Switch was the first commercial glossy magazine for the LGBT community in Romania.
Lucian Dunăreanu is a Romanian gay rights activist and the executive director of Be An Angel Romania, an LGBT rights organisation based in Cluj-Napoca, now PRIDE ROMÂNIA.
Margareta Pâslaru or Pîslaru is a Romanian-American singer, actress, composer, lyricist, TV producer, and artistic director. Debuting in 1958, Pâslaru celebrated the 50th anniversary of her career at The Romanian Union of Composers in Bucharest in 2008. Pâslaru was married to Gheorghe Sencovici, a former Olympic skeet shooter, until his death, and the couple had a daughter, Ana Maria, and a grandson, Luca. Pâslaru has lived and worked in the United States since 1983, splitting between Manhattan and Bucharest. She was formerly a resident of Summit, New Jersey.
Mariana Nicolesco was a Romanian operatic soprano who had an international career after she studied in Rome on a scholarship. She was a regular performer at La Scala in Milan where she performed Baroque opera such as Euridice in Rossi's Orfeo, Mozart roles such as Cinna in Lucio Silla in 1984, and contemporary including the world premiere of Luciano Berio's La Vera Storia in 1982.
The Transilvania International Film Festival is the first international feature film festival in Romania, which is held annually in the historic capital of Transylvania, Cluj-Napoca. Founded in 2002 by the Romanian Film Promotion, TIFF has grown rapidly to become the most important film-related event in Romania. It is a member of the Alliance of Central and Eastern European Film Festivals (CentEast) and it is supported by the Creative Europe – MEDIA Programme. In February 2011, TIFF has been accredited by the FIAPF as a "competitive festival specialised on first and second feature films". Indiewire listed it as one of the world's top 50 leading film festivals.
Ruxandra-Mihaela Cesereanu or Ruxandra-Mihaela Braga is a Romanian poet, essayist, short story writer, novelist, and literary critic. Also known as a journalist, academic, literary historian and film critic, Cesereanu holds a teaching position at the Babeș-Bolyai University (UBB), and is an editor for the magazine Steaua in Cluj-Napoca.
Gábor Tompa is an internationally renowned Hungarian theater and film director, poet, essayist and teacher. Between 2007 and 2016 he was the Head of Directing at the Theatre and Dance Department of the University of California, San Diego. He is the general and artistic director of the Hungarian Theatre of Cluj since 1990, the theatre is member of the Union of the Theatres of Europe (UTE) since 2008. Founder and artistic director of the Interferences International Theatre Festival in Cluj, Romania. President of the Union of the Theatres of Europe since 2018.
Mircea Dumitrescu was a film critic, professor and essayist. He was known especially for his cinematography course accompanied by screenings in the main university cities in Romania.
Joselito Altarejos is an accomplished Filipino filmmaker having won several prestigious awards in the Philippines as well as internationally. He is well known for his ground-breaking openly gay-themed film features like The Man in the Lighthouse, Antonio's Secret, Kambyo, The Game of Juan's Life, Pink Halo-Halo, Unfriend, The Commitment. His 2017 film Tale of the Lost Boys was filmed in Taiwan. His films were celebrated at international LGBT film festivals. With his newly formed production, 2076 Kolektib, his ultimate goal is to create and produce multimedia content that will arouse, educate, and inspire his audiences to become more vigilant and conscious of the social issues and challenges they face in the age of yet another strongman rule. In the true spirit of independent filmmaking, Altarejos’ decades of experience and continued quest to acquire more profound knowledge and creative enrichment is geared towards marshaling the sentient and jolting the uninformed – while still very much adhered to forming the Brockanian concept of the Great Filipino Audience. Altarejos has also worked for Filipino television doing series and anthologies including the long-running TV series Legacy on the GMA Network. In most of his television work, he is credited as Jose Altarejos and Jay Altajeros.
Igor Ursenco is a Moldovan-born Romanian poet, fiction writer, screenwriter, culturologist, pedagogue, political analyst, and polyglot translator.
Antony Hickling is an English Independent film maker, actor, writer and voiceover actor. He became a French citizen in 2018.
Octav Chelaru is a Romanian film director and screenwriter. He wrote and directed the short films Black Clothes (2017) and The Parallel State (2020) which both premiered in Pardi di Domani at Locarno Festival. In 2021, he wrote and directed the feature film A Higher Law.
