Biography

Cãtãlin Mitulescu was born on January 13, 1972 in Bucharest, Romania. He is a producer and writer, known for How I Celebrated the End of the World (2006), Loverboy (2011) and If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle (2010).

[on cinematographer Marius Panduru] We started in [film] school [together], and we are so in love with the 35mm film stock. We were all the time trying to find the good solution for each movie. At a certain point [shooting Heidi (2019)], the film stock disappeared somehow. We thought, "Now we have to adapt, let's try to use digital." We started talking like that, how we will do this. And after one week of talking, he came to me and said, "I have the solution. We will shoot it on 16." [Laughs.] I said, "Okay, that's the solution." You cannot replace film stock. On this movie, it was very important that we shoot it on 16mm. Yes, you can do the color grading and all that. But if you catch the atmosphere on the film stock - this place outside Bucharest, that mud and that haze. I think it was the best solution. It was like we found each other again after a long separation. We really discovered a language that we could use, and we developed that language. [2019]

[on the development process of Heidi (2019)] I think the starting point was when I was doing the research for Loverboy (2011). I was working in a police precinct outside of Bucharest. I was very close with an old policeman who told me some stories about how he found some prostitutes, how he tried to help them. He was very interesting as a character, because I felt that he never told me the complete truth. When I was talking with other colleagues of his, they said he had this mysterious past that was very important. He switched sometimes from [doing] his duty to [having a] personal involvement. It was interesting for me. What's interesting, too, is to tell a story in that period - spring, when it's still muddy, on the outskirts of Bucharest. I really felt connected with this place. I wanted to tell a story about it. It feels like nothing happens, but there are some dark stories there. (...) It came to me: the atmosphere, and the place, with this old man who has power, but is vulnerable. It was very fast. I wrote it, I found a writer I like very much, Radu Aldulescu. He's kind of Zola-style [Émile Zola]: He's in the mud with all his body and soul. He's much darker than me. [2019]