Biography
Monica Lazurean-Gorgan was born in a village in Transylvania, Romania, and studied directing in Bucharest until 2001. In 2007, she co-founded the production company 4 Proof Film with director Adrian Sitaru. As a producer, she was involved in Sitaru's multiple award-winning short film "Colivia" (RU 2010) and his award-winning feature-length films "Din dragoste cu cele mai bune intentii" ("Best Intentions," RU 2011) and "Domestic" (DE/RU 20212), among others.
In 2016, her own film "Doar o rãsuflare" ("A Mere Breath") was awarded Best Romanian Documentary at the Astra Film Festival Sibiu, and subsequently screened on festivals around the world. For the film, Lazurean-Gorgan, over a period of seven years, had accompanied a Romanian family whose lives are extremely determined by the Christian faith. In 2018, her documentary "Dacii Liberi," about the inhabitants of a Romanian village, premiered.
Monica Lazurean-Gorgan's main field of activity remained production. Among the films she has been involved in as a producer are the documentary "Chuck Norris vs Communism" ("Chuck Norris and Communism," GB/RU/US 2015), the Berlinale-winning film "Touch Me Not" (RU/DE/CZ 2018), and the documentary "Acasa, My Home," about a family that lived for 20 years in the wilderness of Romania's Văcărești Delta.
In parallel with all these activities, in 2014 Monica Lazurean-Gorgan began working with Michaela Kirst and Ebba Sinzinger on the documentary "Wood – Der geraubte Wald," about the fight against illegal logging and the machinations of the global timber mafia. Completed in 2020, the film screened at numerous festivals, such as CPH:DOX in Copenhagen and Diagonale in Graz. The German theatrical release was in December 2021.