Cãlin Peter Netzer

He graduated from the 'National University of Theatre and Film I.L. Caragiale (UNATC)' in Bucharest, Romania. Established in 1954 and named after classic Romanian playwright Ion Luca Caragiale (1852-1912), the public university has faculties for theatre and film and offers programs in Directing, Acting, Cinematography, Editing, Sound, Audiovisual Communication and Multimedia. Graduates include Corneliu Porumboiu, Radu Muntean, Cristian Mungiu, Florin Serban, Adina Pintilie, Oleg Mutu, Mihai Malaimare Jr., Marius Panduru, Cosmina Stratan and George Pistereanu.

[on his biography] In 1981 my father visited a congress as a dentist in West-Germany and decided to stay; my mother and I followed him in 1983. I probably never really got used to it [living in Germany] and always asked myself if it wouldn't be better to return to Romania. After I graduated [in Stuttgart] I went to Bucharest to study, in spite of my parents wishes, that I should rather study in Berlin or Munich or even in America, in Los Angeles or New York. But I didn't want to live in another country one more time. It already had been a traumatic experience for me as a child to come from Romania to Germany. (...) I grew up in Cluj, the Transylvanian city of Klausenburg, which is in the north of the country [Romania]. The cultural influence of Germany and the former Austro-Hungarian Empire is still strongly visible there, far more than in Bucharest, which is in the south of Romania. In Germany I was seen as a Romanian immigrant and when I returned [to Romania] I was seen there as a German. Since I didn't return to my homeland [Transylvania], but went instead to the main capital [Bucharest], it took me a few years anyway to feel comfortable and to call it my home.