Is a Romanian director and screenwriter, born in 1975, in Vaslui, Romania. His film-school short features, “Pe aripile vinului” (“Gone with the Wine”) (2002) and “Calatorie la oras” (“A Trip to the City”) (2003) have received many awards, such as the Special Jury Prize at the DaKino Festival for “Pe aripile vinului” and Best Short Feature at Montpellier, Best Director at the “Anonimul” Film Festival and 2nd prize at the “Cinéfondation” section at the Cannes Film Festival for “Calatorie la oras”.
In 2003 his medium-length feature “Visul lui Liviu” (“Liviu’s Dream”) receives the “Opera Prima” award offered by the UCIN, and is declared the best Romanian film at Transilvania International Film Festival (TIFF), before being included in the official Clermond-Ferrand and Telluride festivals selection.
His feature debut, “A fost sau nu a fost” (“12:08 east of Bucharest”), was funded from private sources and premiered at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the “Camera d’Or”, the most prestigious prize for a debut, and the “Label Europa Cinémas” distribution award, thus marking the beginning of his international carrier.
His second feature, “Politist, adjectiv” (“Police, adjective”), following the moral dilemma of a policeman investigating a teenage boy for smoking cannabis, received critical acclaim and won the Jury Prize in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. The film was also the official Romanian entry for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 82nd Academy Awards Ceremony.
“A nine-minute interval” a French-Romanian co-production and his third feature, is one of the most anticipated premieres of the year 2013. It is Porumboiu’s first film to take place in Bucharest in favor of his hometown Vaslui.
A 9-minute Interval
Director: Corneliu Porumboiu
Screenplay: Corneliu Porumboiu
Cinematograpy: Tudor Mircea
Production: Marcela Ursu, “42 km film” and Sylvie Pialat, “Les Films du Worso”
Cast: Bogdan Dumitrache, Diana Avramut
Backing: Romanian National Centre for Cinema, Centre National de la Cinématographie et de l’Image Animée – Cinéma du Monde, Eurimages, SOFICA, MEDIA Programme
Synopsis: “It’s the middle of a film shoot and Paul, the director, is having an affair with Alina, an actress playing a supporting role. With Alina’s last day on set imminent, Paul decides to rewrite the script in order to shoot a nude scene with her. But tomorrow is always another day. Paul wakes up in the morning and decides not to shoot the scene after all. Instead, he calls the producer and tells her he’s having problems with his ulcer…”
