BOGDAN THEODOR OLTEANU
Short version
I’m a filmmaker, screenwriter, and playwright from Bucharest, Romania. I have directed three feature films: Several Conversations About a Very Tall Girl (2018), which earned four Gopo Award nominations—Best Debut, Best Actress for Silvana Mihai and Florentina Năstase, and Young Hope for editor Tudor D. Popescu—and was acquired by HBO and Netflix; Mia Misses Her Revenge (2020), which won the Jury Special Mention at the Warsaw International Film Festival, screened at Slamdance, and received two Gopo nominations—Best Actress for Ioana Bugarin and Best Supporting Actress for Maria Popistașu; and Taximetriști (2023), which hit Romania’s Top 10 historical box office, and landed on Netflix.
I’ve also written and directed five plays, all selected for major Romanian theatre festivals.
Long(er) version
I was born in Bucharest and grew up here during the 1990s, right after communism fell. It was a chaotic time—Romania was changing fast, and I didn’t have much patience for school. I left after high school and started working instead. I collaborated with some small publications and then I joined România Liberă, one of the most important newspapers of that time, as an investigative journalist.
After some years, I moved into consulting—first sports marketing, then political communication. For a while, I even ran my own commercial communication agency, managing campaigns. Around then, I started writing short prose on the side, just for myself, and co-founded SUB25, an online cultural magazine. I didn’t plan to go into cinema or theatre; it just happened step by step, through writing.
My first feature, Several Conversations About a Very Tall Girl, came out in 2018. It’s 75 minutes long, and I co-wrote it and directed it. Silvana Mihai and Florentina Năstase star as two women falling in love in Bucharest. We premiered at the Transilvania International Film Festival (TIFF) in Cluj-Napoca. It got four Gopo nominations: Best Debut for me, Best Actress for Silvana and Florentina, and Young Hope for Tudor D. Popescu, the editor. It screened at festivals around the world, and HBO and Netflix picked it up. We made it on a small budget, and people called it “Romanian Mumblecore” because of its casual, dialogue-heavy style—different from the heavy realism of Romania’s New Wave.
In 2020, I released Mia Misses Her Revenge, an 85-minute feature. Ioana Bugarin plays Mia, an actress planning revenge on her boyfriend after a bad split. It premiered at the Warsaw International Film Festival and won the Jury Special Mention. It also screened at Slamdance. It got two Gopo nominations: Best Actress for Ioana and Best Supporting Actress for Maria Popistașu.
I started writing and directing plays in 2017. My first was Hottest Day of the Year, staged at Apollo111 in Bucharest. In 2018, I did Taxi Drivers at Apollo111, co-written with Adrian Nicolae. It’s about two cabbies—one loud, one quiet—working a night shift, and it was picked for major Romanian theatre festivals. In 2020, I wrote Sara/Mara with Adrian, also at Apollo111. In 2021, Julieta fără Romeo opened at Odeon Theatre, co-written with Alex Mircioi. It’s about a teenage girl preparing for an acting exam, inspired by Shakespeare’s Juliet but set in a small Romanian town.
In 2023, I adapted Taxi Drivers into a feature film, Taximetriști. It’s a comedy about those two cabbies—one extroverted, one introverted—over a wild night.
FILM WORKS
“Câteva conversații despre o fată foarte înaltă / Several Conversations about a Very Tall Girl”- 2018 - 75 min.
“Mia își ratează răzbunarea / Mia misses her revenge” - 2020 - 85 min.
“Taximetriști / Taxi Drivers” - 2023 - 95 min.
THEATRE WORKS
"Cea mai călduroasă zi din an / Hottest Day of the Year" - 2017 - Apollo111 Theatre
“Taximetriști / Taxi Drivers” - 2018 - Apollo111 Theatre
“Sara/Mara / Sara/Mara” - 2020 - Apollo111 Theatre
“Julieta fără Romeo / Julieta w/ Romeo” - 2021 - Odeon Theatre
