Having left Romania during her doctorate, almost convinced that she would not work as a director of photography in the film industry, after meeting Romanian misogyny full-on, Diana Vidrașcu got to Paris in 2013, studying at Sorbonne, and France gave her the chance to do what she had dreamed of doing.

It has enriched her cultural universe and not only she is working as a director of photography, but also as a film stock restoration specialist and the films she has directed were selected at major film festivals such as Locarno, Berlinale, Rotterdam IFFR or Chicago IFF.

A curious artist and determined to express through images, Diana Vidrașcu continues to fight each day in a field dominated by men, who still questions a woman’s capacity to operate a camera on her shoulder.

“It is the same thing for me to shoot a fixed shot, nice or move the 16kg camera in a certain way as it is for a man. Because it is about what is inside the frame and how you create a world through images.”, says Diana.

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I first met Diana in autumn 2025, during Radu Jude’s retrospective at the Centre Pompidou and MK2 Library in Paris. I learned about her work as a director of photography and went on to discover more of her story, in the France Week project.

We met again in june. It was a rainy afternoon in Paris, and Diana was in a short break between shoots.

Diana Vidrașcu was born in Iași and remained there until the age of 14, when her father received a job in Timișoara, so she moved there with her family. At high-school in Timișoara she started taking photography, but this art form was already present in her family.

“My grandfather and mother were both passionate about analog photography. We had a small improvised dark room at home so I got to know the subject from the start. And in Timișoara I started going to the students photography club – Iris, that was in the same building with our high-school. I think that is what made me curious, so I got closer to photography.

I then made some contacts in different artistic fields and the idea of an admission to UNATC, at cinematography. I knew that I didn’t want to do photography in a classic sense, but try something that in closer to film, to cinema.

I was admitted on the first try and at 18 I moved to Bucharest by myself.

The first year was very difficult, and in my second year of college I went into a kind of sad period, in which I would seriously question whether I would have a career in this field or not.

I was the only girl in my class, out of about 10 students. At first the mood wasn’t very friendly from the direction of the teachers, so to say. I even received a comment on the first day of college that «this is not a woman’s career and you won’t last for more than a semester.»

All these experiences leave a mark, especially at this age, when you inevitably compare yourself to others. Eventually I survived, I got good grades, I graduated in the top of the class and I made a lot of films, which I think mattered the most. When I go back and speak about my school years, I can say that I went to a relatively good college, I had a solid education from a professional point of view, but on a human level, it was complicated.

How did you endure? Did you feel like giving up at times?

I think I was supported a lot by my circle and my parents, who, even if they didn’t fully understand my career choice, respected my decision and supported me both emotionally and financially.

In my second year, I started a second degree distance learning program: Communication at SNSPA. So in the end, I graduated from two universities, but I don’t use the second one at all and barely even list it on my CV.

During her study years, she tried to work behind the camera as much as possible, but opportunities for women in the industry were rare. She collaborated with Radu Gabrea and worked as a set assistant for Radu Muntean. Since she didn’t have ongoing projects, she started a PhD at CESI, studying image and communication theory.

That PhD would become her launching pad to Paris, earning her a study semester at the Sorbonne in 2013.

After spending three months in Paris, she did an internship at an experimental film distribution company, where she is now employed as a restorer of old heritage films.

“I learned film restoration on the job, and then I attended a school in Bologna. The FIAF school is there, which is quite respected for film restoration.

The place where I work now is quite special because it’s a distribution company, but not in the traditional sense of the word. We have a very diverse catalog of films, but they are all experimental, so it’s somewhat very niche. And generally, we only hold rights for physical editions, Blu-ray collector’s editions, DVD, or VOD.”

Contact with film stock, both in the restoration process and during shooting, is an essential component of Diana’s work, so much so that she is already recommended in the French film industry for working on film stock.

“I’ve shot mostly on film stock, people saw my work, sought me out to shoot other films with them, and in the meantime, I built a reputation in the industry. But of course, I shoot on digital too. I’m happy to shoot digitally if given the chance, especially if it’s the best option for the film.

And I’m not orthodox in the sense that every film must be shot on film stock. I believe the script will choose its own format. But indeed, people come to me for that. So I could say it has become a bit of a specialization.”

Still, making films on film stock is a luxury nowadays, says Diana, and sometimes this causes financial unfairness toward other departments.

“There are many directors who write thinking about how their film would look on film stock, but the truth is that very often directors, especially young ones, want to do this almost out of a fetishization of the image, to the detriment of the positions and salaries of certain technicians. They are willing to sacrifice sets, to sacrifice important scenes from the script, causing major imbalances that I do not support.

I don’t think we should make art on 35mm at all costs, to the point where the crew gets paid nothing and we suffer with overtime and impossible schedules for it.”

Have you noticed a trend in this regard here in France, an increased interest in shooting on film stock?

“It’s clear that for a few years now, in advertising, fashion, and beauty, a lot is being shot on film stock, even on small formats like 16mm and Super 8: they are very popular right now.

When it’s Fashion Week, you see nothing but people with Super 8 cameras walking around town, and all the professional 16mm cameras are rented out too. Here I really think it’s a trendy aesthetic. And Paris is often at the forefront of visual trends.”

Beyond her work as a cinematographer and film restorer, influenced by her almost daily work within the experimental cinema realm, Diana Vidrașcu wanted to develop her own cinematographic language, combining photography and moving images differently than in classic, narrative cinema.

She participated as a director at the London BFI Experimenta in 2017, and later her films were selected for numerous festivals, including Locarno, Berlinale Forum Expanded, Rotterdam IFFR, and Chicago IFF.

The film “Volcano: What Does a Lake Dream?” (2019) is an exploration of tectonic activity in the Azores Islands, Portugal. The film deconstructs and recomposes 16mm film negatives and was awarded prizes at the Image Science New York (2019) and Toronto Image festivals.

“Le Silence des sirènes” (2019) is an experimental work inspired by Kafka, combining documentary and fiction to depict a young woman’s journey to Martinique. And in “What Time is Made Of” (2017), Diana Vidrașcu explores childhood memory through 16mm film recovered from the sea.

Participating in major festivals brought Diana even more collaborations as a cinematographer.

“The fact that I started making films as a director also opened up new connections with other directors who, in turn, make somewhat different films, not strictly experimental, but less classical, non-narrative.

I like that experimental cinema isn’t repetitive at all, it’s very rich, even if it’s marginal cinema or cinema that is less known to the general public, but where there are so many languages, ways of working, and overlaps with contemporary art.”

“I think it was an important discovery to come here and find out, to learn what a different kind of cinema means than the one I studied in school, but I think most of all I wanted to leave the professional film environment in Romania because it seemed very complicated to work in that kind of atmosphere, in those kinds of professional relationships. Back then it was quite an aggressive and difficult environment, it felt almost impossible for me to be taken seriously, or to find my creative voice, to grow professionally, or to build a stable crew.

Because in the end, as a cinematographer, you are responsible for a team of X people. It can be two people or it can be twenty. But you also need to have the leadership capacity, and people have to listen to you and trust you.

Did you feel it was easier here?

Yes, definitely. It is still very hard here too, you have to fight twice as hard as a woman. It remains difficult in this profession, it’s hard to assert yourself, there are always issues with producers.

But I feel that there is still a different work ethic and that misogyny isn’t exacerbated, as was the case in Romania.

I don’t know if things will be good for my generation. Maybe for the generation coming after me things will be better. I try to fight for the women technicians I have on my crew, and for my female colleagues, so that they have an easier life than the one I had when I was 25. But it remains complicated.”

This year, for the first time in history, a woman won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography: Autumn Durald Arkapaw, for the film “Sinners”. The news went around the world because it was something unprecedented. Women in this industry continue to face stereotypes.

“There are many women who have technical jobs, and I don’t know how many people question their abilities. It seems to me that we suffer from a sort of false reputation, where the cinematographer is supposed to be a strong person who only knows what the focal length of a lens is.

The whole industry has contributed to this simplistic image of a position that is eminently masculine and technical, when, in fact, our work is based much more on a visual education that we receive, on a culture that we can accumulate, and on the ability to translate a text into a visual work. I find it very unfair to keep saying that a cinematographer is usually or would better be a man so that he is capable of working with a heavy camera.

It’s just as hard for me to make a stable, beautiful frame or move a certain way with that 16 kg camera as it is for a man. Because it’s about the content of the frame and how you create the world as an image.

In fact, as a woman, you are constantly facing a self-image problem, from the moment you leave the house and take a taxi until you arrive at work, meet someone who is or isn’t a colleague, go to the hospital, etc. These are problematic interactions at all levels of society, and this kind of discrimination manifests in every industry, it’s not just in the film industry.

But it’s clear that my position is very targeted and I have to make a constant, conscious effort. And in Romania, I felt like I was fighting windmills. I had no chance of making any real progress, and I felt that very quickly. And I left Romania when I was 25.

Has anything changed?

Maybe, I’m not sure, but now I see female colleagues in the industry who have very respectable careers, such as Ana Drăghici, a person I admire very much, or Boróka Biró, who is also very recognized and successful, and I am very happy for them.”

As a film restorer, Diana says her work can be compared to that of a detective, because it involves research and documentation before actually coming into contact with the film stock.

“We also need to understand the whole context: how the film was made, what kind of production it was, who worked on it. I need to know everything about how that specific shoot was done, the special effects techniques, or the interventions on the film stock, to understand how they were created so I can repair or reproduce them.”

And as a director, she wants to intellectually challenge the audience in a different, more subtle way than classic cinema, which tells stories through a script. Diana Vidrașcu’s films are stories told through images rather than words.

“I have always wanted the audience to be able to leave the cinema after seeing my film with more questions than they had before coming to see it. I want the film to be able to spark questions, a debate, or a kind of doubt in the person who watched it. And not necessarily to give immediate satisfaction, because I think that’s what narrative film does. It gives you the satisfaction of having understood a story, of having understood a character’s arc, whereas I have always wanted my film to be able to plant seeds of doubt in the viewer, rather than certainty.”

“I’m curious how you are perceived among French people or foreigners when you introduce yourself as a filmmaker from Romania?”

“I think we are living in a favorable moment as filmmakers from Romania. Generally, the reactions are very good, and not necessarily just in France, but across Europe and in the States. Romanian cinema is very well-known and appreciated, and people in the industry respect it a lot. Everyone will have a director’s name or two as a reference, or a film that impressed them greatly.

Romania is seen as a kind of magic ground that produces films and brilliant minds in cinema.”

“And do you think that helps you too? Is it like a positive business card?”

“Honestly, these kinds of discussions, about where you come from or what school you went to, come up at a later point. In general, what matters first and foremost is your portfolio, what recommendations you have, who you’ve worked with before, and what projects you’ve shot. And later on, we start talking about origins, film school, and your initial background.”

Diana Vidrașcu says she belongs to a generation of young Romanians who wanted to leave Romania and didn’t look back much. She visits her relatives back home, but doesn’t necessarily feel a professional desire to return to Romanian soil. France opened her mind and creative universe, and Paris has become an international film hub where she has the chance to work with directors from all over the world.

Paris is a unique phenomenon in itself. I live in an international environment, both professionally and personally, surrounded by close friends and relationships. I’m not just surrounded by French people. My partner is Swedish, I speak Swedish as well, I have friends of many nationalities, at work I speak French and English in almost equal measure, while with my partner at home I speak French and Swedish. My life now happens across at least four languages.

Paris is very cosmopolitan in that regard. And that reflects even more in daily life if you work in the cultural sector. Today I’m going to an art opening, tomorrow to another cultural event. Here it’s like this non-stop.

It’s a very vibrant life, and it’s clear that this has helped me enormously in my professional life as well. Paris is simply extraordinary for anyone working in art or culture.

And there are also fantastic opportunities in terms of funding and institutional support. Film funding doesn’t come from just a single place, it’s not just the CNC. There are galleries, institutions, private collectors, etc.

But even in France, everyone is very worried about next year’s elections and what might change if the far right comes to power. All these funding possibilities I’m talking about, and this broad range of support sources, could change drastically, or the topics and recipients could become restricted.

At major film festivals, the role of the artist in relation to politics has been widely debated in recent years. How do you see this role? Do you think an artist should express themselves politically?

Definitely, I feel that every gesture we make is political. And art carries an enormous responsibility; if art isn’t what speaks about the political world, I don’t know who should. Economists?! I think it’s very important to maintain a critical spirit, and I feel that we make political films no matter what we do, through the way we shoot, through the methods we use, through what we say.

Sometimes it’s not so obvious whether the story carries a specific weight or message, but the way you work in this industry is, in the end, still a political decision.

I think we also need to have a kind of clarity regarding who is behind these sources of funding or distribution and where that money comes from. In France, there is currently a debate about the Bolloré empire. And I don’t think we should be so naive as to claim that money has no color. There are certain artists who are very aware of this and choose whether or not to work with a particular funder.”

Beyond what Paris has offered her, Diana says the cultural background she received from Romania is part of who she is, and she looks back with melancholy at her childhood home in Iași. In the meantime, her parents have also moved to France, so visits back home have become rarer.

“I am, nevertheless, proud when I can say that I went to film school in Romania, and I tell everyone about it, despite everything I felt regarding misogyny. I feel that it remains a very important cultural and historical background, and it’s part of who I have become today as a person.

I get very nostalgic when I think about Iași, when I think about the house our family has had for four generations. I have a very intimate connection with that house, with that city, with the way I grew up there. At the same time, there is a kind of sadness; I realize that everything has changed enormously and that the city is becoming a victim of consumer society.

A lot of corruption is altering the real estate landscape, the architectural landscape, and human relationships in Romanian society. Everything somehow falls victim to a systemic corruption at all levels, and I have the impression that we, as individuals, still don’t have much power.

It feels like a sort of tragic destiny against which we cannot fully rebel, and it resembles the feeling I had as a student, in my own little world where I wanted to make films as a cinematographer.”

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This material is part of the “France Week” series, a Cultura la dubă project supported by BNP Paribas.

The post Diana Vidrașcu, director of photography, director and film stock restoration specialist: As a woman, you have to fight twice as hard”. appeared first on Cultura la dubă.