Cristian was born in autumn 1982 in Bucharest, as the son of a tailor and a priest. He spent much of his late childhood doing actor work for television, which triggered his interest in film. After finishing school he decided to move to Berlin and started out as an assistant for a fashion photographer. An internship for a documentary film led to more work and also his first forays into camerawork. In 2003 he passed the entry exam for the Film School in Babelsberg, near Berlin, studying cinematography there until 2011. In 2010, while working at Babelsberg Studios for a Roland Emmerich film, he met and befriended Iranian-French director and comic book author Marjane Satrapi, author of "Persepolis". Two years later they worked together on a feature film called "Las Jotas", which by then was Cristian's third feature film and his first one to be shot in French.

Cristian likes to alternate between shooting features and documentaries. He's still an avid photographer and speaks fluently German, English, French and Romanian. He feels at home shooting in any current format, digital or film-based, although he prefers letting the images speak for themselves, which is why you won't see any format listings on his website. You are encouraged to ask questions, though, which he will gladly answer.

Here's an almost complete filmography as either director of photography, gaffer, or otherwise.