Thrilled to announce that George Dogaru won eight awards at Martinsburg Apollo Film Festival for his masterpiece MIAZEL!!
- Best short film
- Best Director
- Best Actor
- Best Actor in supporting role
- Best Edition
- Best Sound
- Best Cinematography
- Best Special Effects
The Martinsburg Apollo Film Festival was held to great public acclaim in West Virginia last week, with screenings taking place at the historic Apollo Theatre.
MIAZEL is the new short film by Romanian director and producer George Dogaru. He is one of the most successful and promising filmmakers in the Eastern European film industry.
He has also recently directed OCTOPUS, which premiered at the Tirana International Film Festival in Albania; an event that serves as a qualifying screening for the Hollywood Oscars and the EFA European Film Awards.
George Dogaru also produced LEAF, a cinematic gem directed by newcomer and rising star Horatiu Carpiuc, which is competing in the qualifying festivals for the Hollywood Oscars and European Film Awards.
Miazel’s Synopsis:
The dystopian future depicted in “Miazel” is one in which Romania’s ethnic minorities are sent to labor camps. A common citizen’s life in this new society takes an unexpected turn once he is suspected of descended from impure Romanis.
MIAZEL means “confusion” in some Romani dialects — a word that speaks to the heart of this story.
We live in times where human rights are too often taken for granted, as if they were permanent fixtures of modern life. But history shows us otherwise: freedom is not a given — it is fragile, and must be defended constantly, even in so-called civilized societies.
This film was born out of a growing fear that authoritarianism no longer wears the face of monsters, but of polite bureaucracy, moral panic and cultural silence. I wanted to explore what happens when someone who has everything to lose — social status, comfort, a sense of identity — is suddenly marked as “other.” Not because of what they’ve done, but because of who they supposedly are.
MIAZEL is not a historical film, though its roots are tangled in the past. It’s a warning, not a reenactment. A fictional Romania of the near future, where civil liberties have eroded step by step, until people forget they were ever free. The confusion — miazel — is not just in the streets, but in people’s minds. That, I believe, is the most dangerous form of control.
This is a story about fear, complicity, and the desperate search for clarity when the system turns its gaze on you.
MIAZEL is the fourth project by this outstanding filmmaker that we have at Mailuki Films.
Stay tuned. We’ll be announcing further successes for this extraordinary European film very soon.
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