Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, and the Black Sea to the southeast. It has a predominantly temperate-continental climate, and an area of 238,397 km2 (92,046 sq mi), with a population of around 19 million. Romania is the twelfth-largest country in Europe and the sixth-most populous member state of the European Union. Its capital and largest city is Bucharest, followed by Iași, Cluj-Napoca, Timișoara, Constanța, Craiova, Sibiu, Brașov, and Galați.
Transylvania is a historical region in 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 encompass the western and north-western Romanian regions Crișana and Maramureș and occasionally Banat.
Bucharest is the capital and largest city of Romania, as well as its cultural, industrial, and financial centre. It is located in the southeast of the country, on the banks of the Dâmbovița River, less than 60 km (37.3 mi) north of the Danube River and the Bulgarian border.
Nicolae Ceaușescu was a Romanian communist politician and dictator. He was the general secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989, and the second and last Communist leader of Romania. He was also the country's head of state from 1967, serving as President of the State Council and from 1974 concurrently as President of the Republic, until his overthrow and execution in the Romanian Revolution in December 1989, part of a series of anti-Communist uprisings in Eastern Europe that year.
Cluj-Napoca, or simply Cluj, is the fourth-most populous city in Romania. It is the seat of Cluj County in the northwestern part of the country. Geographically, it is roughly equidistant from Bucharest, Budapest and Belgrade. Located in the Someșul Mic river valley, the city is considered the unofficial capital of the historical province of Transylvania. From 1790 to 1848 and from 1861 to 1867, it was the official capital of the Grand Principality of Transylvania.
The culture of Romania is an umbrella term used to encapsulate the ideas, customs and social behaviours of the people of Romania that developed due to the country's distinct geopolitical history and evolution. It is theorized and speculated that Romanians and related peoples are the combinations of descendants of Roman colonists and people indigenous to the region who were Romanized.
The Romanian Revolution was a period of violent civil unrest in Romania during December 1989 as a part of the Revolutions of 1989 that occurred in several countries around the world. The Romanian Revolution started in the city of Timișoara and soon spread throughout the country, ultimately culminating in the show trial and execution of longtime Romanian Communist Party (PCR) General Secretary Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife Elena, and the end of 42 years of Communist rule in Romania. It was also the last removal of a Marxist–Leninist government in a Warsaw Pact country during the events of 1989, and the only one that violently overthrew a country's leadership and executed its leader; according to estimates, over one thousand people died and thousands more were injured.
The Ostern or Red Western was a film genre created in the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc as a variation of the Western films that originated in the United States. The word "Ostern" is a portmanteau derived from the German word Ost, meaning "East", and the English word "western". The term now includes two related genres:
The Manaki brothers, Yanaki and Milton, were photography and cinema pioneers of the Balkan Peninsula and the Ottoman Empire. They were the first to bring a film camera and create a motion picture in the city of Manastir, an economic and cultural center of Ottoman Rumelia. Their first film, The Weavers, was a 60-second documentary of their grandmother spinning and weaving; this is regarded as the first motion picture shot in the Balkans. The Manaki brothers used a 35 mm Urban Bioscope camera that Yanaki imported from London in 1905. Yanaki and Milton filmed documentaries about various aspects of life in the city of Manastir.
Anamaria Marinca is a Romanian actress. She made her screen debut with the Channel 4 film Sex Traffic, for which she won the British Academy Television Award for Best Actress. Marinca is also known for her performance in 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, earning several awards for her performance, and was nominated for the European Film Award for Best Actress, London Film Critics Circle Award for Actress of the Year, Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress and National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress. In 2008, at the 58th Berlin International Film Festival, she was presented the Shooting Stars Award by the European Film Promotion.
The cinema of Romania is the art of motion-picture making within the nation of Romania or by Romanian filmmakers abroad. It has been home to many internationally acclaimed films and directors.
Cristian Mungiu is a Romanian filmmaker. He won the Palme d'Or at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival for his film 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, which he wrote and directed. He has also won the awards for Best Screenplay and Best Director, at the 2012 and 2016 Cannes Film Festivals, for his films Beyond the Hills and Graduation.
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days is a 2007 Romanian art film with drama and thriller elements, written and directed by Cristian Mungiu and starring Anamaria Marinca, Laura Vasiliu, and Vlad Ivanov. The film is set in Communist Romania in the final years of the Nicolae Ceaușescu era. It tells the story of two students, roommates in a university dormitory, who try to procure an illegal abortion. Inspired by an anecdote from the period and the general social historic context, it depicts the loyalty of the two friends and the struggles they face.
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.
The Romanian New Wave is a genre of realist and often minimalist films made in Romania since the mid-aughts, starting with two award-winning shorts by two Romanian directors, namely Cristi Puiu's Cigarettes and Coffee, which won the Short Film Golden Bear at the 2004 Berlin International Film Festival, and Cătălin Mitulescu's Trafic, which won the Short Film Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival later that same year.
Odessa in Flames is a 1942 Italian-Romanian propaganda war film directed by Carmine Gallone and starring Maria Cebotari, Carlo Ninchi and Filippo Scelzo. The film is about the Battle of Odessa in 1941, where the city was taken in an operation was primarily conducted by Romanian forces and elements of the German Army's 11th Army.
The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceaușescu is a 2010 Romanian documentary film directed by Andrei Ujică.
The Nun is a 2018 American gothic supernatural horror film directed by Corin Hardy and written by Gary Dauberman, from a story by Dauberman and James Wan. It is a spin-off/prequel of 2016's The Conjuring 2 and the fifth installment in the Conjuring Universe franchise. The film stars Demián Bichir, Taissa Farmiga and Jonas Bloquet, with Bonnie Aarons reprising her role as the Demon Nun, an incarnation of Valak, from The Conjuring 2. The plot follows a Roman Catholic priest and a nun in her novitiate as they uncover an unholy secret in 1952 Romania.
