Ilie Mitaru is an Emmy-nominated producer and director whose work centers on regular people in extraordinary circumstances.
His 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.
From American cowboys brought to Russia to help restart the country’s beef industry to renegade farmers building their own wildfire defense rigs and a lone auto mechanic traversing miles of desert borderland to save migrants, Ilie’s stories create empathy and a connection to what at first might appear foreign but ultimately proves universal.
Contact Ilie at ilie@formatfilms.org, and 503.568.9530
