The Afternoon of a Torturer

Born in 1933 in Southern Bessarabia (part of Ukraine since the 1940s), Lucian Pintilie studied film and theatre in Bucharest. He began his directing career in theatre before turning to film. Although his films were internationally praised—Sunday at Six won The Grand Prize of the International Youth Jury in the 1966 Cannes Festival; Reenactment was presented in the official selection of Quinzaine des Réalisateurs, 1969 Cannes; Ward Six won Un Certain Regard at the 1979 Cannes Festival—Pintilie was in a continuous fight with the Romanian communist authorities. After Reenactment was banned in 1969, and his theatre production of The Inspector was banned in 1972, Pintilie was forbidden to work in theatres and had only two more films produced, the last of which—Carnival Scenes—was also banned for 10 years, to be officially released only in 1991. Pintilie was ultimately pressured by the authorities to leave Romania in 1982. For twenty years he lived and worked in France and the United States, directing plays, television films and operas. He served as artistic director of the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis, MN, and of the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. In 1990 Pintilie returned to Romania and released in 1992 The Oak—the first post-revolutionary Romanian film to get international recognition: official selection of 1992 Cannes Festival, the 1993 Felix for Best European Actress (Maia Morgenstern), among others. Too Late won him another nomination for the Golden Palm Award in Cannes, while Last Stop Paradise was nominated for the Golden Lion in Venice. He has been both a prolific auteur and a supporter of a new generation of filmmakers as head of the public film studio Studioul de Creaţie Cinematografică.