7 Rising Romanian Talents Ready to Break Out in 2026

Jun 19, 2026 5:33am PT

Fresh off Romanian filmmaker Cristian Mungiu’s triumph at the Cannes Film Festival, where his latest, “Fjord,” starring Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve, earned the director his second Palme d’Or, spirits are high at this week’s Transilvania Intl. Film Festival, which takes place June 12 – 21.

Following the trailblazing success of Mungiu, Cristi Puiu (“The Death of Mr. Lazarescu”), Radu Jude (“Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World”) and other pioneers of the Romanian New Wave, a generation of emerging talents is looking to establish itself, both building on the success of their predecessors while taking Romanian filmmaking in radically new directions.

Speaking to Variety in Transilvania, TIFF artistic director Mihai Chirilov says he’s noticed a “shift” in style, tone and aesthetics among Romanian filmmakers, as local cinema “reaches the limits” of the movement that placed it on the map.

“Ever since the Romanian New Wave, which really changed the way a lot of arthouse cinema was made in the last 20 years, nowadays, I think this formula reached a dead end,” Chirilov says. Instead, emerging talents are offering “striking new proposals,” “flirting with genre cinema” and finding ways to “innovate a tired formula,” he adds.

It has not been an easy time for the local industry, which faces chronic funding challenges and was hamstrung in recent years by a beleaguered cash rebate system that is finally now back on track.

After years of hardship, TIFF founder and president Tudor Giurgiu — who is also an accomplished director and producer to boot — says he’s “surprisingly positive for the years to come,” noting that the landscape for local filmmakers is “very lively now.”

“It’s changing,” Giurgiu tells Variety. “The young people want to do a bit of a different cinema than what has been branded as Romanian New Wave. They want to explore more in other genres. There is a boom of commercial films that created a big change in our local industry.”

As TIFF celebrates its 25th anniversary, here are seven rising Romanian talents to keep an eye on in the years to come:

Octav Chelaru

From as early as 3 years old, Chelaru recalls watching Westerns with his father, gunslinging shoot-’em-ups that mirrored events in a country that, during its rough transition to democracy, often felt like the Wild West. But “while many remember the 1990s as a difficult period,” the director says, “to me they felt adventurous and full of possibility.” Chelaru began making amateur films at the age of 14 and charted his own course as a director after being rejected by film school. He financed his first shorts while working as a programmer, and after a pair of Locarno premieres, he went on to make his debut feature, “A Higher Law,” which received eight nominations at the Romanian Oscars, the Gopo Awards. Chelaru’s sophomore feature, “Archangel,” is being presented in TIFF’s Works in Progress program, and he hopes to wrap production on a third feature by the fall. “I believe films are becoming one of the last refuges for empathy, reflection and humanity,” he says. “If my work can help keep that space alive, even in a small way, I will consider it a success.”

Lucia Chicoș

As a teenager, Chicoș was inspired by the cinema of the Romanian New Wave, but the real draw of filmmaking was to choose a profession that allowed her “to perpetually reflect on my interests in the human condition, to both mirror and enrich my pursuit in understanding myself and others,” she says. Her short film “Contraindications” was awarded at Cannes’ Cinéfondation in 2020, and she followed that with the IDFA-premiering feature documentary “Where I Am Now,” co-directed with Alexandra Diaconu, in 2022. Chicoș is now developing her narrative feature debut, “Horseshoe,” which won the Transilvania Pitch Stop award at TIFF in 2025. Despite the busy start to her career, she says she “hope[s] to reach the point where filmmaking becomes more of a flow in my life.” “I want film directing to be not just my main interest but to become my main professional activity, because a lot of things interest me and I have a lot of ideas and I just want the chance to explore them,” she says. “I think the ideal is to make all the films you are inspired to make.”

Cristi Iftime

A student of philosophy who came to cinema after being gripped by Romanian director Lucian Pintilie’s classic tragicomedy “The Reenactment,” Iftime’s personal mantra as a filmmaker boils down to a simple desire to have “the freedom, the time and the conditions to make the exact creative choices I wanted to make,” he says. “That means: no compromise.” Iftime began his career behind the camera as a still photographer. After directing several successful short films — including the Berlinale selection “15 July” and his master’s degree short, “The Camp in Răzoare,” selected for Cannes’ Cinéfondation in 2012 — he made his feature debut with “Marita,” which was awarded at Karlovy Vary in 2017. Now, after a long hiatus, Iftime is in post-production on his second feature, “The Fear Artist,” which is screening in the Works in Progress program at TIFF this week. Success and accolades not withstanding, the director considers filmmaking to be its own reward, and says he “wouldn’t want much more” from making films than having the freedom to do it on his own terms. “And making a living out of it,” he adds, “if I’m not asking too much.”

Ligia Ciornei

Given her background, it’s no surprise that Ciornei is determined to push boundaries as a filmmaker. “Growing up in Bucovina, a multicultural region near the Ukrainian border, I witnessed how stories can connect people across different cultures and experiences,” she says. “That inspired me to become a filmmaker — to give a voice to those rarely heard and to create films that build empathy beyond borders.” Following her directorial debut, “Clouds of Chernobyl,” which screened at Transilvania in 2022, Ciornei is now returning with “Grounded,” a drama set at the outbreak of war in Ukraine. It’s a film that “brings together Romanian, Ukrainian and Italian perspectives on the war and explores how ordinary people navigate extraordinary circumstances,” she says, something that exemplifies her desire “to contribute to a cinema that is both emotionally powerful and innovative.” With a background in immersive technologies and artificial intelligence, Ciornei hopes to explore the relationship between humanity, technology and social change through film. “I want to continue developing projects that push the boundaries of storytelling while remaining true to human experience.”

Cristian Pascariu

Cluj native Pascariu recalls being transported the first time his parents took him to the movies, at the iconic Cinema Clasic in his Transylvanian hometown. “It was the kind of cinema that no longer exists, the kind that smells like ‘Cinema Paradiso,’” he says. “Sitting there in the dark, with only the projector’s dusty ray of light above me, I felt reality dissolve. That boy was in another world, a fictional one, and it felt better than the real one.” An accomplished screenwriter and short-film director, the 39-year-old has spent his adult life chasing that childhood joy. In 2024, he co-directed his first feature documentary, “Nasty,” about Romanian tennis bad boy Ilie Nastase, which premiered at Cannes, and he’s currently in post-production on his narrative feature debut, “A Flower Is Not a Flower.” Next up is another feature doc, co-directed with “Nasty” collaborators Tudor Giurgiu and Tudor Popescu, about the iconic Romanian gymnast Nadia Comăneci, slated for a 2027 release. “For me, cinema is…about feeling the world disappear for a while,” Pascariu says. “If I accomplish anything in this industry, I hope to create films that make people feel reality differently for a while.”

Paul Cioran

Cioran would be the first to admit that he didn’t show flashes of precocious talent as a boy or some innate passion for the moving image. His circuitous path to filmmaking included detours in journalism and advertising — and even a brief stint in hospitality at a luxury hotel in the U.S. — but he sees each as necessary stops on a longer journey to film. “There was no ‘aha’ moment,” he says, crediting “the slow accumulation” of experience that led to the moment “when I simply couldn’t run anymore from making movies.” After racking up credits as a first A.D. and directing three short films, Cioran is now in post-production with his debut feature “Another One, Maybe. But Not This One,” screening in the Works in Progress program at TIFF. Up next is a dark comedy about a 53-year-old vampire struggling with newfound immortality. “I think I became a filmmaker because I have always been both fascinated and frightened by imagination and by the moment when an inner world becomes powerful enough to alter someone’s reality,” he says. What would success look like to him? “If audiences can recognize certain recurring questions and obsessions and ways of seeing the world across my films.”

Ana-Maria Comănescu

Bucharest-based writer-director Comănescu knew from an early age that she had a future in cinema. “I have always been drawn to creative expression through writing and art, but also quite prone to analysis, rigor and self-discipline,” she says. As early as 13 she realized that filmmaking was “a craft that combines them,” and since going all-in on a moviemaking career, “I’ve never changed my mind.” After directing a string of well-received shorts, Comănescu made her feature debut with “Horia,” a road movie that premiered at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival in 2023. She describes making that film as “a deeply transformative process that lasted seven years and took a toll on my physical and mental health,” though she was rewarded by “finally coming out to the light on the other side.” Next up is her sophomore feature, “Paradox,” for which she’s a finalist for a prestigious Alex Leo Serban scholarship. For Comănescu, humor is key to filmmaking, and proof of her commitment to not take art — or life — too seriously. “I hope to further be able to focus on my own voice, refine my techniques, explore other art forms, and keep on making films that I truly believe in,” she says.

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