Dan Pița

Dan Pița (b. 1938) is a Romanian director and screenwriter. A key part of the so-called “Generation of the 70s” that revitalised Romanian film in the late communist period, he made his name as one of the co-directors of the 1971 documentary Water Like a Black Buffalo, which screened at the Cannes International Youth Festival. He then co-directed two films with Mircea Veroiu about the remote communities of the Apuseni Mountains: The Stone Wedding (1972) and Lust for Gold (1974). Pița would go on to carve out a precarious directorial career within the Romanian studio system, becoming known for a playful approach to character. In 1983, his film Sand Cliffs reportedly raised the ire of Ceaușescu himself, and he was barred from working in cinema until the fall of the regime.