mitaru23@gmail.com

Ilie Mitaru is an Emmy-nominated producer and director whose work centers on regular people in extraordinary circumstances.

American cowboys brought to rural Russia to help restart the country’s beef industry; renegade farmers building their own wildfire defense rigs; a lone auto mechanic traversing miles of desert borderland with jugs of water to save his fellow migrants, Ilie’s stories create empathy and a connection to what at first might appear foreign, but ultimately proves universal.

Ilie’s films and photography have been featured in The New York Times, National Geographic, The Guardian, among others. A first generation Romanian-American whose parents received political asylum during the Cold War, Ilie is drawn to stories that push against easy assumptions of otherness and strive for a more complex understanding of the individuals and communities centered in his work.

Filmography:

• First Frames / short documentary / 2024 / (produced by WePresent)
• La Frontera / short documentary / 2018 / (produced by NBC)
• Wrangling Russia / short documentary / 2017 / (produced by The Guardian)

Festivals and Awards:

• American Documentary Film Festival / Official selection / Palm Springs, USA
• UN International Film Festival / Official selection / Geneva, Switzerland
• Warsaw Film Festival / Official selection / Warsaw, Poland
• Woodstock Film Festival / Official selection / Woodstock, USA
• ECOCINE International Environmental & Human Rights Film Festival / Official selection / São Paulo, Brazil
• Indie Street Film Festival / Official selection / Red Bank, USA