Anamaria Marinca

Anamaria Marinca (born April 1, 1978 in Iaşi, Romania) is an award-winning Romanian actress.

She graduated from the University of Fine Arts, Music and Drama "George Enescu" in Iaşi. She speaks Romanian, English, French and German. She lives in London.


In 2005, she won 3 Best Actress Awards (the BAFTA Television Awards, the Royal Television Society Award and the 'Golden Nymph' at 45th Festival de Télévision de Monte Carlo) for her role in Sex Traffic, a CBC/Channel 4 drama about human trafficking. As well as appearing on stage in Romanian theatre productions, she also acted in Measure for Measure at the National Theatre in London.


In 2007, Anamaria Marinca starred in the Romanian film 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days by Cristian Mungiu, which won the Palme d'Or at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, and two other awards (the Cinema Prize of the French National Education System and the FIPRESCI prize). She also appeared in the Francis Ford Coppola film Youth Without Youth. More recently, she appeared in 2008 as a supporting character in the BBC 5-episode miniseries The Last Enemy as Yasim Anwar, a human rights activist and the lead character's love interest. Also, Marinca appeared in the Romanian drama Boogie and Oliver Hirschbiegel's acclaimed Five Minutes of Heaven.


Most recently, Marinca played the leading role in Storm by Hans Christian Schmid and starred in Julie Delpy's The Countess. Furthermore she participated in Sleep with me by Marc Jobst. From July 24th until August 8th 2009 Marinca will be seen in Sarah Kane’s final play "4:48 Psychosis", directed by Christian Benedetti in the Young Vic Theatre in London (from Wikipedia).

Palme d'Or / Cristian Mungiu

Cristian Mungiu (born April 27, 1968, Iaşi), Romanian director, writer, producer.


Cristian Mungiu is the brother of political analyst Alina Mungiu-Pippidi. After studying English literature at the University of Iaşi, he worked for a few years as a teacher and as a journalist. After that, he enrolled at the University of Film in Bucharest to study film directing.


After graduating in 1998, Mungiu made several short films. In 2002, he debuted with his first feature film, Occident. Occident enjoyed critical success, winning prizes in several film festivals and being featured in Director’s Fortnight at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival. In 2007 Mungiu wrote and directed his second feature, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. The film was received enthusiastically, attracting critical praise and being selected in the official competition at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, where it eventually won the coveted Palme d'Or for feature film, marking the first time that prize was awarded to a Romanian filmmaker. The film won also the Cinema Prize of the French National Education System and the FIPRESCI Prize at Cannes, the Best Director and Best Film awards at the 2007 European Film Awards, and other awards at several important film festivals.