Liviu Ciulei

Liviu Ciulei (; 7 July 1923 – 24 October 2011) was a Romanian theater and film director, film writer, actor, architect, educator, costume and set designer. During a career spanning over 50 years, he was described by Newsweek as "one of the boldest and most challenging figures on the international scene". Ciulei is known for winning the Best Director Award at the 1965 Cannes Film Festival for his film Forest of the Hanged. In 1992 he was elected corresponding member of the Romanian Academy. He received a star on the Romanian Walk of Fame in Bucharest on 13 December 2012. Biography Born in Bucharest to Liviu Ciulley [sic], a lawyer and constructor, he studied at the Gheorghe Lazăr High School. Ciulei then studied architecture and theater at the Royal Conservatory of Music and Theatre. He made his theater debut in 1946, as Puck in an Odeon Theatre production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Soon after, he joined the theater company known as Teatrul Municipal din București, later renamed Teatrul Bulandra, and directed his first stage production in 1957 – The Rainmaker. In 1961, Ciulei gained an overall recognition for his version of Shakespeare's As You Like It. In the same year, he was a member of the jury at the 2nd Moscow International Film Festival. He was the recipient of the Directors' Award at the 1965 Cannes Film Festival for Forest of the Hanged, the film version of Liviu Rebreanu's eponymous novel, where he also starred in the role of Otto Klapka. In the 1980s, he was marginalized by the Communist regime and transferred to work at the Sahia film studio, as documentary filmmaker.