Raluca-Maria Rusu

Screenwriter / Film Director / Stop-motion animator / Producer

Raluca-Maria Rusu was born in the small town of Bistrița, Romania, but grew up in Bucharest. She attended law school at the Bucharest University before moving to Germany to study film. Raluca graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in film directing from IFS International Filmschool Cologne. During her film studies, she developed a personal style, a combination of surrealism, expressionism and black humour which earned her student short films „Downtown Story”  and „Once Upon a Time Gypsie”s a few nominations such as First Steps Berlin, Europe in Shorts and Cologne Design Prize for inovative visual storytelling, elaborate sets and costumes. To deepen her film knowledge and find new film mediums, Raluca further studied at the Academy of Media Arts (KHM) in Cologne, Germany, earning a Master’s Degree in screenwriting and stop-motion animation. She participated with her graduation script for feature film „Horses at the King” at Transilvania Pitch Stop Workshop (TPS) at TIFF Cluj and also at Film TEEP Training Programme. After studying and working for ten years in Germany, she moved back to Romania where she is currently in pre-production with her short fictional film „Prinsoare” (Shadows in the Sun) and in development with a feature film and a stop-motion animation short. Right now, she is directing and animating the stop-motion animation short „Burn Out”.