Emil Loteanu
Director and poet who put Moldovan cinema on the international map
1936-2003
Photo: Gikü (talk), CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Emil Loteanu was a film director, screenwriter and poet, and the best-known filmmaker Moldova has produced. His films Lăutarii (1972) and Șatra (1976) won awards at the San Sebastián festival. His partnership with the composer Eugen Doga produced some of the best-loved film melodies of the Soviet era.
Link with MoldovaEmil Loteanu was born in Clocușna in the north of present-day Moldova and made his first feature films at the Moldova-Film studio, including Lăutarii, about Bessarabian folk musicians.
Loteanu was born on 6 November 1936 in Clocușna, then part of Greater Romania and now in Ocnița district. After his father died he lost touch with his mother and lived on the streets of Bucharest for a time. From 1953 to 1955 he trained as an actor at the Moscow Art Theatre, and in 1962 he graduated from the VGIK film school in Moscow.
In 1963 he made his feature film debut at Moldova-Film. Lăutarii (1972) tells the story of a gifted violinist in nineteenth-century Bessarabia and won a special jury prize in San Sebastián. Șatra (1976), known in Russian as Tabor ukhodit v nebo, won the Golden Shell there, the festival's top award. These were followed by My Sweet and Tender Beast (1978), based on a story by Chekhov, and Anna Pavlova (1983), a British and Soviet coproduction with Michael Powell among its producers. Loteanu also published collections of poetry and short stories.
The link with Moldova
With Lăutarii he made the lăutari, the professional musicians of the Bessarabian countryside, the subject of an internationally acclaimed film. He did not write the music himself: for that he worked with Eugen Doga, who also composed the waltz for My Sweet and Tender Beast.
Loteanu died of cancer in Moscow on 18 April 2003 and is buried in the city's Vagankovo Cemetery.
Key facts
- Born in Clocușna on 6 November 1936
- Graduated from the VGIK film school in 1962
- Lăutarii in 1972, special jury prize in San Sebastián
- Golden Shell in San Sebastián for Șatra in 1976
- Died in Moscow on 18 April 2003
