Liviu Ciulei

Liviu Ciulei was one of the most important directors in Romanian cinema. Born on July 7th 1923 in Bucharest, he was raised in a family of intellectuals. His father was a renowned architect. Ciulei studied architecture himself, and then he attended 'The Royal College of Theater and Music of Bucharest'.

Actor in theater plays since 1945 and in motion pictures since 1951.

His debut as an actor came with the 1946 stage version of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at the Odeon Theater in Bucharest.

Graduate of the Faculty of Architecture, Bucharest, 1949

In 1954, Ciulei made his directorial debut with N. Richard Nash's "The Rainmaker" at Bulandra Theater (then called The Municipal Theater). He also started a prodigious career as a stage designer, mainly for his own theatrical productions.

In 1964, Ciulei became the first Romanian filmmaker to win the 'Best Director' award at the Cannes Film Festival for his acclaimed epic Forest of the Hanged (1965). This was his 7th picture as a film actor and the 3rd and last as a film director. He continued to work hard as a director, actor and stage designer for the theater in Romania, but also abroad, in Canada, Australia and the US.

In his last decades, Liviu Ciulei's interactions with the film world were limited to filmed plays (O scrisoare pierduta - 1977, Hamlet - 2000) and a documentary about his greatest stage designs.

He became the director of the Tyrone Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1980.

After the Romanian Revolution (1989), Ciulei returned to Romania for several new plays, as the Honorary Manager of the Bulandra Theater.

The first complete U.S. retrospective of his work was organized by the Film Society Lincoln Center, New York City [Nov.30-Dec.6 2011].