TIFF.22 Excellency Award: Horațiu Mălăele

Actor, director, cartoonist, and writer, Horațiu Mălăele will receive the Excellency Award at the Transilvania IFF.22 Closing Gala on June 17 at the National Theatre in Cluj-Napoca.

During his visit to Transilvania IFF, Horațiu Mălăele will perform his show Sunt un orb / A Blind Man on Saturday, June 17, at Florin Piersic Cinema, starting 6:00 pm.

"I follow a principle learned and borrowed from Chaplin. If you produce a work of art that pleases, in equal measure, the elder and the child, the fool and the wise, the profane and the initiated, that is the supreme delight of the creator in their one-sided relationship with the viewer."

Over his round glasses, Horațiu Mălăele's gaze has become known to audiences from more than 60 films. Since his debut in 1974, with the lead role in Muntele ascuns / The Hidden Mountain (dir. Andrei Cătălin Băleanu), Mălăele has worked with some of the most important Romanian directors, including Geo Saizescu (Secretul lui Bachus/Bachus' Secret, 1984), Alexandru Tatos (Secretul armei secrete/The Secret of the Secret Weapon, 1988) and Ion Popescu Gopo (Maria Mirabela in Tranzistoria, 1989). In 1984 he played a teacher in Piciu/The Kid, the last film directed by Iosif Demian before leaving the country, based on a script written by Mircea Diaconu. The story of a group of schoolchildren on summer holiday attracted more than 1.5 million cinema-goers when it was released. The cast includes Victor Rebengiuc, Răzvan Vasilescu and Diana Lupescu.

In 1992, the role in Divorț… din dragoste/Divorce... out of Love (d. Andrei Blaier) of a young man forced to break up his marriage on the absurdity of the communist system, won him the acting prize at the Costinești Festival. In 1994 he was cast by Mircea Daneliuc in the comedy Această lehamite / Fed Up where he played Bebe, a soon to be father facing the death of his pregnant wife and the ambition of a doctor to keep his unborn child alive. He will work with Daneliuc again for Ambasadori, căutăm patrie/Ambassadors, Seek Country (2003). Of his recent roles, perhaps his best known and most loved by audiences is that of Ilie Moromete in Moromeții 2 (dir. Stere Gulea, 2018), for which he received a Gopo Award nomination. Horațiu Mălăele has also worked in international co-productions with directors Costa Gavras (Amen, 2001) and Robert Guédiguian (The Army of Crime, 2009).

As a film director, he authored Nunta mută/Silent Wedding (2008), Funeralii fericite/Happy Funerals (2012) and Luca (2020), all three with Adrian Lustig as screenwriter.

As a theatre actor, he has won an impressive number of awards. He has performed on stages in Piatra Neamț, Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, Oradea, Brasov and Constanța, where he played roles in legendary shows such as Karamazovii/The Karamazovs, directed by Dan Micu, Acești îngeri triști/Those Sad Angels, directed by Mircea Cornișteanu, and Scapino, directed by Alexandru Dabija. Since 1982, he has been directing theatre productions, staging plays such as Teodor Mazilu's O sărbătoare princiară / A Princely Feast, Georges Faydeau's Puricele/The Flea and Paul Ioachim's Carlo contra Carlo/Carlo versus Carlo. His extremely humorous, intelligent one-man show Sunt un orb / A Blind Man, impressive in its virtuosity, was conceived as a monologue made up of poems, short prose, and memorable scenes from plays, and it has also been performed for Romanian communities abroad. He has played over 150 roles in television theatre.

A cartoonist and writer, Mălăele has exhibited some 3000 of his works in over 30 exhibitions and was editor-in-chief of Satirul. He has published two autobiographical books: Horațiu despre Mălăele (2008) and Rătăciri (2012).

TIFF.22 will host a special screening of the film Piciu/The Kid in the presence of Horațiu Mălăele.

The Transilvania IFF Excellency Award is presented by Mercedes-Benz.

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Transilvania International Film Festival is organized by the Association for the Promotion of Romanian Cinema and the Association Transilvania Film Festival.