Mihai Cristian Chirilov (b. Dec. 8 1971, Tulcia- Romania

Romania

Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

), is a Romanian film critic

Film criticism

Film criticism is the analysis and evaluation of films, individually and collectively. In general, this can be divided into journalistic criticism that appears regularly in newspapers, and other popular, mass-media outlets and academic criticism by film scholars that is informed by film theory and...

- one of the most influential of his generation- and artistic director of the Transilvania International Film Festival

Transilvania International Film Festival

The Transilvania International Film Festival is a film festival held in Cluj-Napoca, Romania and established in 2001 by Romanian Film Promotion...

- TIFF (Cluj

Cluj-Napoca

Cluj-Napoca , commonly known as Cluj, is the fourth most populous city in Romania and the seat of Cluj County in the northwestern part of the country. Geographically, it is roughly equidistant from Bucharest , Budapest and Belgrade...

- Romania).

Biography

Mihai Chirilov was born in Tulcea (Romania) in December 8, 1971. He moved to Bucharest

Bucharest

Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....

 in the early '90. There he started writing film criticism for the weekly Dilema, and soon became vice director of another magazine called pro Cinema, also related to the Romanian TV channel

PRO Cinema

PRO Cinema is a Romanian movie channel that is owned by Central European Media Enterprises and launched on April 19, 2004. It was the first Romanian TV channel dedicated exclusively to movies, and as such it attracted a significant audience from its very inception, mainly in the 18-49 urban...

.

In 2005 he founded the magazine Re:Publik, running it until 2008. He also wrote for Cosmopolitan

Cosmopolitan (magazine)

Cosmopolitan is an international magazine for women. It was first published in 1886 in the United States as a family magazine, was later transformed into a literary magazine and eventually became a women's magazine in the late 1960s...

, HBO magazin, Observator Cultural

Observator Cultural

Observator Cultural is a literary magazine based in Bucharest, Romania. It covers Romania's cultural and arts scene.-External links:*...

, Dilema Veche

Dilema Veche

Dilema veche , formerly Dilema, is a Romanian weekly journal of culture, criticism and opinion.- History :It was founded as Dilema in 1993 by art critic Andrei Pleşu and up until the end of 2003 it was edited by an independent cultural body, Fundaţia Culturală Română...

 along others.

In 2002 he co-founded the Transilvania Film Fest together with producer-film director Tudor Giurgiu

Tudor Giurgiu

Tudor Giurgiu is a Romanian film director. He was President of the Romanian National Television, TVR between 2005 and 2007. Tudor Giurgiu is also a director of music videos and has made documentaries...

. Transilvania Film Fest (TIFF) is the most important film festival

Film festival

A film festival is an organised, extended presentation of films in one or more movie theaters or screening venues, usually in a single locality. More and more often film festivals show part of their films to the public by adding outdoor movie screenings...

 in Romania and one of the biggest in Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...

.

In 2006, Mihai Chirilov started the Romanian film festival in New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

, an event held to promote the Romanian cinema in U.S.

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 It was possible with the support of ICR New York (Romanian Cultural Institute

Romanian Cultural Institute

The Romanian Cultural Institute is a state-funded institution that promotes Romanian culture and civilization in Romania and abroad. The ICR was formerly set up through reorganization of the Romanian Cultural Foundation and Romanian Cultural Publishing Foundation...

) and Tribeca Cinemas.

During Fall 2011, Chirilov is the guest curator of the New Romanian Cinema series at Jacob Burns Film Center, Pleasantville (New York). The series includes the international acclaimed 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days by Cristian Mungiu (Golden Palm at Cannes in 2007), Police Adjective by Corneliu Porumboiu (2009) and The autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu by Andrei Ujica (2010), along with a full retrospective of the work of filmmaker Cristi Puiu (The death of Mr. Lazarescu), and a special screening of Alexandru Tatos's Anastasia gently passes, in the presence of actress Anda Onesa.
The program at J.B. Film Center was presented in partnership with the Romanian Cultural Institute of New York, and possible by the Fellowship for Understanding through Film, developed through a grant from Kathryn W. Davis with support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.

Chirilov has been serving as member of juries in many festivals, including Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

 (Berlinale), Goteborg, Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

, Palm Springs

Palm Springs

Palm Springs is a desert city in CaliforniaPalm Springs may also refer to:* Palm Springs, Florida* Palm Springs, Hong Kong, a residential development in Yuen Long, Hong Kong* Coachella Valley, also known as the Palm Springs area...

, Cleveland, Hong Kong

Hong Kong

Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...

, Moscow

Moscow

Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

, Karlovy Vary

Karlovy Vary

Karlovy Vary is a spa city situated in western Bohemia, Czech Republic, on the confluence of the rivers Ohře and Teplá, approximately west of Prague . It is named after King of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV, who founded the city in 1370...

- along with many others.

Chirilov is member of FIPRESCI (The International Federation of Film Critics).

He's the Romanian translator of Chuck Palahniuk

Chuck Palahniuk

Charles Michael "Chuck" Palahniuk is an American transgressional fiction novelist and freelance journalist. He is best known for the award-winning novel Fight Club, which was later made into a film directed by David Fincher and starring Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, and Helena Bonham Carter...

's books.
He also wrote a book on Lars von Trier

Lars von Trier

Lars von Trier is a Danish film director and screenwriter. He is closely associated with the Dogme 95 collective, although his own films have taken a variety of different approaches, and have frequently received strongly divided critical opinion....

in collaboration with film critics Alex. Leo Șerban and Ștefan Bălan- Lars Von Trier- filmele, femeile, fantomale (Ed. Idea design & print 2006).

Mihai Chirilov currently lives between Bucharest and New York.