Irina Petrescu

Acting

Irina Petrescu

Born 1941-06-19 · Bucureşti, Romania

Irina Petrescu (1941–2013) was a celebrated Romanian stage and screen actress, also active in radio and television. She was discovered while still a university student by director Savel Stiopul, whose screen tests eventually reached Liviu Ciulei and led to her film debut in *The Danube Waves* (*Valurile Dunării*, 1960). Although she had initially enrolled in the Faculty of Letters, she went on to graduate from the “I.L. Caragiale” Institute of Theatre and Film Arts in Bucharest in 1963 (class of Ion Șahighian and David Esrig). Petrescu quickly became one of the most refined and distinctive presences in Romanian cinema of the 1960s, admired for her elegance, intelligence, and emotional precision. She starred in films such as *I Don’t Want to Get Married*, *A Sentimental Story*, *Steps to the Moon*, and *The Stranger*, and gained further acclaim in Lucian Pintilie’s *Sunday at Six* (1966), opposite Dan Nuțu. The two reunited in *The Mornings of a Sensible Boy* (1967). In 1969, she won the Best Actress award at the 6th Moscow International Film Festival for her performance in *The Mischievous Adolescent*. Though she appeared in 29 films between 1959 and 2010—including *Through the Ashes of the Empire*, *The Making of the World*, *The Impossible Love*, *Hotel de Lux*, and *Miss Christina*—theater remained her greatest passion. She spent her entire career at Bucharest’s Bulandra Theatre, working with major directors such as Liviu Ciulei, Alexandru Tocilescu, Cătălina Buzoianu, Silviu Purcărete, and many others, in productions ranging from Shakespeare and Molière to Sartre, Camus, Pirandello, and Beckett. Reserved in public life and rarely giving interviews, Irina Petrescu was regarded as one of the most distinguished actresses of her generation—an artist whose poise and depth left a lasting mark on Romanian theater and cinema.

Acting credits

Story of My Foolishness poster
10.0

The celebrated actor considers his wife a nitwits actress of a mediocre talent. But an influential playwright, a friend of theirs, has written a play with the main role designed for her, Kati, particularly. Its title is "The Most Intelligent Woman in the World". On the day of the first night performance Kati recalls their past, the times she had together with her husband.

Story of My Foolishness

1966

Sunday at Six poster
6.4

Romania, 1940. A boy meets a girl. They fall in love without suspecting anything about their real identities. They chose an eventful, tense and dangerous life as underground anti-fascists fighters. The significance of their activity is manifest in the consequences it has on the tormented progress of their love. Reality is against it. Two parallel lines which meet for a second, only to drift apart for ever.

Sunday at Six

1965

The Mornings of a Sensible Youth poster
6.5

After graduating from high school and failing the university entrance exam, young Vive leaves his parents’ home in order to find his own way in life and assert his independence.

The Mornings of a Sensible Youth

1967

The Impossible Love poster
7.4

Calin Surupaceanu is a simple boy, convinced by the engineer Dan to accompany him in building a new city. Along the way, he meets his future wife and subsequently source of unrest and rebellion against fate. The movie is based on a novel by Marin Preda called "The Intruder".

The Impossible Love

1984

The Stranger poster
5.8

The love of two adolescents for the same girl, in 1944, which is disrupted by the demands of war. From the novel by Titus Popovici.

The Stranger

1964

Miss Christina poster
7.0

Christina's ghost haunts the mansion where she was born.

Miss Christina

1992

The Waves of the Danube poster
7.0

Ciulei’s second feature recalls the best of Fritz Lang and Michael Curtiz in its WWII-era espionage tale, set on a barge transporting Nazi munitions up the Danube. Ciulei himself givers a superb performance as Mihai, the barge captain forced to navigate the heavily mined waters along with his new bride, Ana (Irina Petrescu). As the journey wears on, Mihai becomes increasingly suspicious of one of his crew, ex-convict Toma (Lazar Vrabie), and his intentions towards Ana. But Toma has a far graver—and potentially deadly—secret to conceal.

The Waves of the Danube

1960

The Making of the World poster
7.4

Around the nationalization in 1948, a worker's daughter, as a student, is attracted by the social life offered by a breed horse owner. The relationship will sour by the cruelty with which he kills the horses, rather then give them away.

The Making of the World

1971

A Woman for a Season poster
6.0

The film presents the drama of a proud man, full of himself, proud of his physical and intellectual qualities. Palaloga, whose life had been an uninterrupted succession of gallant, professional and spiritual successes, finds out at one point that he is seriously ill and is approaching death. In full dying delirium, almost like a confession, he realizes that his life until then was just an empty lie, in which he never lived something true, pure and beautiful and asks an imaginary Mephistopheles to give him another month of life, because in the meantime to achieve something great to stay after him…

A Woman for a Season

1969

The Human Resources Manager poster
7.2

A tragic comedy centered on the HR manager of Israel's largest industrial bakery, who sets out to save the reputation of his business and prevent the publication of a defamatory article.

The Human Resources Manager

2010

The Moment of Truth poster
7.3

An epic love story set during the troubled moments of Romanian history that culminate in the Great Union of Alba Iulia.

The Moment of Truth

1989

Operation 'The Bus' poster
7.0

In 1950 a Western spy is clandestinely parachuted into Communist Romania to retrieve secret WW2 codes and agent lists and also to assist a group of anti-Communist guerrillas escape but the Communist police is setting a trap.

Operation 'The Bus'

1978

A Light on the 10th Floor poster
7.2

A woman tries to regain her dignity, both in her personal life and her career, after spending five years in prison, because of a false accusation that she was a saboteur.

A Light on the 10th Floor

1984

No artwork available
NR

Pavel is a teenager who has been just released from prison, unsuccessful in overcoming his guilt over a car accident which killed both of his parents. His reintegration in society is met with difficulty, the boy only having a few friends who still understand him, a painter and a sailor.

Alone on Watch

1983

Three Days and Three Nights poster
7.2

In 1946, Northern Transylvania, an armed band is annihilated by the local communist organization, which manages to rally the locals on they side.

Three Days and Three Nights

1976

The Carpathian Castle poster
5.8

In late 19th century, a Transylvanian revolutionary fleeing the Imperial authorities goes to Italy where he meets a beautiful soprano who later disappears under mysterious circumstances.

The Carpathian Castle

1981

I Don't Want to Get Married poster
8.5

In a textile factory, the cultural supervisor falls in love with a typist. To impress her, he pretends to be friends with a famous composer whose operetta was to be performed by the company's artistic brigade. However, the typist, an uneducated woman, sees him only as a means to become the protected one of an influential person.

I Don't Want to Get Married

1961

Chief of the Souls Sector poster
7.4

Magdalena, a young chemist, imagines how the perfect man should look like. Gore, a meteorologist, former friend who was in love with her identifies in the end with the true love imagined by Magdalena.

Chief of the Souls Sector

1967

Luxury Hotel poster
6.0

In an allegorical tale, a luxurious hotel is ruled like a communist country. The ignorant views of leaders and the social stratification are the main focus.

Luxury Hotel

1992

Those Who Pay with Their Lives poster
5.1

An uncompromising journalist obsessed with the idea of absolute justice ends up committing suicide after reading his father's biography. Based on three novels by Camil Petrescu.

Those Who Pay with Their Lives

1989

Beyond the Bridge poster
6.2

Mara, a hard-working widow, brings up her two children in a developing industrial Transylvanian town.

Beyond the Bridge

1975

Fourth Fence, by the Wharf poster
5.6

Mișu and Mitică are two best friends. Everything changes when Cornelia shows up.

Fourth Fence, by the Wharf

1988

Sentimental Story poster
6.5

Georgie, a young talented and respected doctor, leaves his job at a hospital in the capital and goes to work in a remote fishing village. Georgie has a hard time in the new place, where the fishermen prefer the witch doctor to the doctor. Boredom and unsettled life irritate his wife Irina, and she returns to the city. After some time, when Georgie managed to defeat the distrust of the fishermen, win their respect and love, he persuaded Irina to return. During a noisy and merry celebration, Irina carelessly climbed a precipitous bank and fell to her death.

Sentimental Story

1962

Seven Days poster
5.7

This movie presents 7 days of a secret agent's life. Unlike most other movies that glamorize secret agents, this one shows the routine, nitty gritty work.

Seven Days

1973