VIDEO The movie “The Rod of the Century” will be the proposal of Romania for the Oscar awards
The Oscar Awards Gala may be seen in streaming, photo: Shutterstock (edited)
The film “The robbery of the century” (launched in some countries under the name “Traffic”), directed by Teodora Ana Mihai after a scenario signed by Cristian Mungiu, is the proposal of Romania for the Oscar 2026 prizes in the category “Best International Length”, announced on Wednesday the National Center of Cinematography in a statement.
The film starts from the story of the Romanian thieves who stole masterpieces of Picasso, Matisse, Gauguin and Monet from the Kunsthal Museum in Rotterdam in 2012. Called by the Dutch press “the robbery” or “theft of the century”, he was the “work” of Romanian immigrants Radu Dogaru, Adrian Procop and Eugen Darie, who managed to enter the museum and to work with works. which was generally estimated at 50-100 million euros.
They were arrested in July 2013, but not before the mother of one of them, fearing the severity of the facts, burning the paintings in the stove of his home in Tulcea to try to erase their traces.
Mungiu has retained the starting point of the last incident 13 years, but explained that the characters are fictitious, focusing on the theme of migration, the way Romanians feel treated abroad, and as the value of a Gauguin painting, for example, is incomprehensible to those who work on little money.
“Art has an intrinsic, but also contextual value, when you try to express it in money it is always problematic, and when you teleporting works of art in a society where people are struggling to survive, all kinds of questions are born,” Mungiu said in an interview with Curatorial.ro.
The “robbery of the century” won the big prize at the Warsaw Film Festival
The film The robbery of the century He premiered in the official competition of the Warsaw festival, where he won the prize for best movie. He was later presented in the competition at the Tokyo International Film Festival, being distinguished with the award for best actress for Anamaria Vartolomei and at the Shanghai International Film Festival, where she received the public prize. The national premiere took place in Cluj, within the TIFF.
The film will be released on September 23 in the cinemas in Romania.
Anamaria Vartolomei, Ionuț Nicolae and Rareș Andrici play in the main roles, and Macrina Bârlădeanu, Lucian Ifrim, Alexandru Potocean, Thomas Ryckeway and Mike Lebanon complete the distribution.
The robbery of the century It is a Romanian-Belgian-Landese co-production, produced by Mindset Productions, in Co-product with Mobra Films, Lunanime, Les Du Fleuve, Bastide Films, Filmgate Films, Vast and ExcePost Media. The film is made with the support of the National Center of Cinematography.
When will the short list for the next Oscar award gala be revealed
The short list for the 2026 Gala nominations of the Awards will be announced by the American Film Academy on December 16, 2025, and the final selection on January 22, 2026. The 98th Gala of the American Film Academy is scheduled to take place on March 15, 2026, in Los Angeles.
Last year the film proposed by Romania for the Oscar awards was the feature film Three miles to the end of the worldafter being awarded with Queer Palm at the Cannes International Film Festival.
The drama feature directed by Emanuel Pârvu did not pass the pre -selection phase and did not take the short list of nominations.
documentary Collective Directed by Alexander Nanau and produced by Bianca Oana has remained the only Romanian film that has caught the short list for the most prestigious gala of the film industry. The film about the tragedy at the Collective club was nominated in 2020 at the Oscar award for best documentary.
