- Born
- Half Swiss and half Romanian, Ruxandra Zenide was born in Bucharest in 1975. When she was 15, her parents moved to Switzerland. Zenide was passionate about cinema and in 1998 she became the assistant director of the Cinéma Tout Ecran Fim Festival in Geneva. After obtaining her Master's Degree in International Affairs at the 'Institut Universitaire des Hautes Etudes Internationales' (IUHEI) in Geneva, she studied film directing at the New York University for a year and then at the FAMU in Prague from 2000 to 2002. While studying at FAMU, she co-wrote, produced and directed the short film "Dust" which was selected by many international festivals incl. Clermont-Ferrand, Bruxelles and Locarno, where she won the "Prize for Promising Talent". Her medium length film Green Oaks (2003), shot in Romania, was a co-production with Swiss TV and had an intense film festival life, winning awards at Brest, Drame, Olympia, Solothurn, Nenzing and Famu Fest. In 2004, she was one of the founders of the film production company Elefant Films, where she produced several films. Zenide made her feature film debut with the Swiss-Romanian drama Ryna (2005), which was shot in the Danube Delta in Romania. Produced by her childhood friend Cãtãlin Mitulescu, co-written by talented Czech screenwriter Marek Epstein and photographed by acclaimed DP Marius Panduru, the film received 25 international prizes at festivals around the world. It was distributed in theatres in the USA, Switzerland, Germany and Romania and was highly requested by television buyers. Zenide's second feature film The Miracle of Tekir (2015) was shot again near the Black Sea in Romania and had an equally impressive team with Hélène Louvart as cinematographer, Nelly Quettier as editor and actors Elina Löwensohn and Bogdan Dumitrache in the main roles. Ruxandra Zenide has just received the «Emerging Swiss Talent Award» at the Zurich Film Festival 2015 and her ambitious art house drama will be released in Romania and Switzerland next.
- IMDb mini biography by: Anonymous
- Has Swiss and Romanian citizenship.
- In 1998 she received a degree in International Relations from the Institute HEI (Haute Études Internationales) in Geneva, Switzerland.
- She attended a one-year program at FAMU in Prague, where she directed the short subject "Dust" (2002), winner of the New Hopes Prize at the 2002 Locarno International Film Festival.
- Lives in Geneva, Switzerland.
- Studied film directing at New York University (NYU).
- In the end, you must be true to yourself. You must be independent from the market. So if you construct plot-lines for a "European market", yes, in a way you limit your artistic liberty. I don't know what Vera Chytilová thought when she made Daisies (1966). She surely didn't think that she made her film for a specific audience, otherwise it wouldn't have been so good. [2011]
- [on producing] It's a very political job. I learned with the [Romanian] New Wave, Cãtãlin Mitulescu, Cristian Mungiu, all these people that produce their own films, that directors are the best producers. They know how to write a screenplay, they know how to make a casting, they know how to choose the best technical material. This is what makes a good producer, not only the financial part. [2011]
- The film world in Romania is quite male dominated. In France and Switzerland there are a lot more successful women directors. But this will surely change. In a few years there will be a bunch of great Romanian women directors. [2011]
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