The Odeon Theatre in Bucharest on Monday hosted an award gala during which the culture channel of Radio Romania acknowledged the best poems, literary works, theatre productions, films, the best fine artists and musicians, as well as the best accomplishments in education and science. Staged as a grandiose show of colour, music and elegance benefiting a brand new set design and unitary conception, the award gala was an event, which brought together leading figures of the Romanian cultural and artistic life, spectators and fans of those artists as well as televiewers and listeners of the public radio and TV stations.

The prizes were designed to create an as accurate image of the Romanian cultural life as possible. The winners included the director of the National Theatre in Bucharest, Ion Caramitru, who was awarded the “Theatre Prize” for a project called “The Caragiale Centennial”.

Ion Caramitru: “It takes more than a single man to carry out such an ambitious project aimed at bringing back to public attention an author of the magnitude of Ion Luca Caragiale. This award is actually for the entire personnel of the National Theatre and all those who have contributed to these shows.”

In the prose category, Florina Ilis was awarded the prize for her book “Parallel Lives”, while in the poetry section, Dan Sociu got an award for his volume, “Naïve and Sentimental Poetry”.

Painter Gheorghe Anghel got the prize in the Fine Arts Section, while the prize in education went to the Grigore Antipa Natural History Museum in Bucharest for a 2012 project called ‘Summer School at Antipa’s”. Dr. Nicolae Zamfir, director of the “Horia Hulubei” National Nuclear Physics Research & Development Institute, got the award for science for his efforts to bring to Romania the largest scientific research project on lasers.

During the same award gala, conductor Tiberiu Soare got the ‘music’ prize, while director Cristian Mungiu’s film ‘Beyond the Hills’ reaped the best film award. ‘Beyond the Hills’ has clinched numerous international awards including that for the best script at the Cannes international film festival and the best actress prize, awarded to Cristina Flutur and Cosmina Stratan at the same festival.

Organizers of the aforementioned gala also awarded five special prizes. The “Lux Mundi Award”, went to theatre director Andrei Serban and an ‘excellence award’ to Serban Foarta, a poet, playwright, translator and professor. Tenot Bogdan Mihai went away with the ‘In memoriam Iosif Sava Award’ while the prize for “Cultural Projects” was awarded to the Cultural Projects Centre with the Bucharest City Hall – ArCuB. The ‘Radio Romania 85’ prize went to the Gaudeamus International Book and Education Fair.