Cristi Puiu Movies and Career Information

Cristi Puiu (born 3 April 1967) is a Romanian film director and screenwriter. Puiu's first interest in art was painting and in 1992, he was admitted as a student at the Painting Department of Ecole Superieure d'Arts Visuels in Geneva. After the first year he switched to film studies at the same school and graduated in 1996. After returning to Romania, Cristi Puiu started directing and writing his first films, generally enjoying critical success. Cristi Puiu's debut as a director was in 2001 with the low budget road movie Stuff and Dough (Marfa şi Banii) starring Alexandru Papadopol and Dragoş Bucur. The film received several awards in international film festivals and competed in the Quinzaines des Realisateurs section of the Cannes Film Festival. Some critics say that this is the movie that started the Romanian New Wave in cinema. He continued with a short film, Cigarettes and Coffee (Un cartuş de Kent şi un pachet de cafea) (2004), which was awarded the Golden Bear for best short film at the 2004 Berlin International Film Festival. His second film, The Death of Mr. Lăzărescu (Moartea domnului Lăzărescu) (2005), features the drama of an old man who is carried by an ambulance from