History of the day: April 18 - Emil Loteanu - the best director of the 20th century in Moldovan cinema

Emil Loteanu was born on November 6, 1936, in Clocușna, former Hotin County, now Ocnița District of the Republic of Moldova. He studied at the school in his native village. After the annexation of Bessarabia by the USSR in 1944, Emil remained in Rădăuți, Romania, together with his father Vladimir, while his brother, Marcel, accompanied his mother Tatiana to Bucharest. The parents divorced and, according to the brother of the future director, Marcel, in January 1950 the 13-year-old minor Emil Loteanu decides to leave his adoptive mother and stepbrothers in Rădăuți and bravely cross the state border between Romania and the USSR to meet again and saw his blood relatives: grandmother after mother, aunts, uncles, cousins ​​from Colincăuți village, Hotin district. Caught by Soviet border guards after crossing the border, he was arrested and investigated, detained for two weeks in a military unit near Chernivtsi and finally released, and after a brief visit of a few hours of surviving relatives in Colincăuți he was taken and handed over to the Romanian border guards. Among Emil Loteanu's relatives in Colincăuți was his cousin, Luchian Anaticiuc, currently a well-known academician in thermoelectrics in Chernivtsi.

On April 18, 2003, the famous director Emil Loteanu ended his crucifixion of earthly life in Moscow

In 1950, while his family lived near the Sahia film studios in Bucharest, the film "Life Wins" was shot in their house. Being a very intelligent child, well versed in Romanian language, history and geography, gifted natively and with a special imagination, having inclinations towards acting, after graduating high school, Emil Loteanu tries to attend the Institute of Arts, Theater and Cinematography in Bucharest. However, his admission file was rejected, probably due to the general attitude that existed at that time towards the Bessarabians.

Thus, in 1952 Emil Loteanu asked to be repatriated to Bessarabia and returned to his native village, to try to study cinema in Moscow, to follow his strong call to this art. Between 1953 and 1954, at the age of 17, he was an actor at the Dramatic Theater "A.S. Pushkin ”in Moscow, and at the VGIK (Moscow Institute of Cinematography) he studied film directing (1956-1962). His brother, Marcel, remembers: “One day, being with his mother in Chernivtsi, he went to a cinema and saw an American film. He liked it so much that he was marked for life. When he took the cinematography exam at VGIK, he wrote about that film he saw with his mother in Chernivtsi ”.

The glory of the great film director brought him the films "Poienele roșii" (1966), "Lăutarii" (1971), "Gingașa şi tandra mea fiară" (1978), "Anna Pavlova" (1983) and "Luceafărul" (1986). ). Some scenes from "Fiddlers" were filmed in Crasna Bucovinei. Then Emil Loteanu chose Chernivtsi to film some frames for the film "Luceafărul" - a cinematographic work about Mihai Eminescu. The building on 22 Ucraineană Street, where the headquarters of the "Bucovina" newspaper is located, "served" as a place for the "Junimea" Society from Iași, of which Mihai Eminescu was a member. Scenes of a "youngest" meeting were filmed here.

In recognition of his merits in the field of film directing, Emil Loteanu was awarded the titles of Emeritus Master of Art in the MSSR (1969), People's Artist of the Russian Federation (1980), the title of honorary member of the International Academy the Nike movie. He also received the State Award and the Order of the Republic. In 2001, Emil Loteanu was awarded the Prize for Excellence in Directing Art, awarded at the Romanian Athenaeum in Bucharest.

Emil Loteanu passed away on April 18, 2003, in a hospital in Moscow, being buried in the Vagankovo ​​cemetery in the Russian capital.

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