Iluminace 2025, 37(2):197-212 | DOI: 10.58193/ilu.1817

Death as a Theme. An Interview with Cristi Puiu

Lucian Georgescu ORCID...
National University of Theatre and Film, Bucharest, Romania ✉

This is a seven-hour long conversation that explores the theme of death between two colleagues of the same generation. In this personal documentary project, Lucian Georgescu engages directly with Cristi Puiu, “the Bergman of the East,”1) an auteur known for weaving the Grim Reaper as a fundamental, consistent theme throughout his films, including Stuff and Dough (2001), The Death of Mr. Lăzărescu (2006), Aurora (2010), Sieranevada (2014), and Malmkrog (2020). The dialogue ventures into the elusive, fragile, and often hidden realms of the auteur’s creative process, striving to grasp the origins of thematic inspiration. Drawing on sources such as Ernest Becker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Denial of Death (1973) and his subsequent theory of terror management, explored in The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life (Greenberg, Solomon, and Pyszczynski, 2015), and touching on Gnostic theories, Georgescu engages Puiu in a frank, intimate exchange. The result is a profound radiography of a major contemporary filmmaker‘s creative process and a nuanced portrait of an influential yet socially controversial Romanian auteur. The dialogue, published on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of Lăzărescu, offers insights into the deeply personal art of screenwriting and filmmaking.

Keywords: New Romanian Cinema, Cristi Puiu, The Death of Mr Lăzărescu, screenwriting, auteur cinema

Received: March 13, 2025; Revised: August 16, 2025; Accepted: October 3, 2025; Published: November 10, 2025  Show citation

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Georgescu, L. (2025). Death as a Theme. An Interview with Cristi Puiu. Iluminace, 37(2), 197-212. doi: 10.58193/ilu.1817
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