Petru Popescu

Petru Popescu (born February 1, 1944) is a Romanian-American writer, director and film producer, author of the novels Almost Adam and Amazon Beaming.

Romanian beginnings The son of theater critic Radu Popescu and actress Nelly Cutava, he was born in Bucharest, and graduated from the Spiru Haret National College, after which he studied English language and literature at the University of Bucharest. His debut was a collection of poems, Zeu printre blocuri ("A God Between Apartment Buildings"). In 1969, he published Prins ("Caught").

He went on a Herder scholarship to Vienna (1971–1972), and in 1973 participated in the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa.

Emigration After participating in that writing program, Popescu defected in 1973 or 1974 while in England on a private trip related to the English translation of his book Sfârșitul bahic, taught comparative literature in Great Britain, and moved to the United States in 1975, where he studied at the Center for Advanced Film Studies of the American Film Institute. The Romanian government tried him for treason. In Romania his books were banned.

At the time of his defection he was the Union of Communist Youth secretary of the Romanian Writers' Union and a candidate member of the Central Committee of the Union of Communist Youth.

In the United States, he married Iris Friedman, with whom he has two children: Adam and Chloe. His 2001 novel The Oasis is noted as "A memoir of love and survival in concentration camp" written in the first person as if in the words of the biographee, Blanka Friedman.

Sundance Popescu received a letter from Robert Redford inviting him to submit a script for consideration for the Sundance Film Festival. In 1983, Popescu took Death of an Angel to Sundance, where the script came to near finalization. The festival enabled him to find backers for the film, which was released in 1986.

Works

Novels written in Romanian 1969 - Prins 1970 - Dulce ca mierea e glonțul patriei 1973 - Să crești într-un an cât alții într-o zi 1973 - Sfârșitul bahic 1974 - Copiii Domnului 1993 - Înainte și după Edith 2002 - Întoarcerea 2002 - Oaza 2003 - În coasta lui Adam 2008 - Urme în Timp 2009 - Supleantul

Bibliography in English

1973 - Bough 1974 - Blues 1975 - Burial of the vine 1975 - Boxes, Stairs & Whistle Time

1978 - Before and After Edith

2008 - Weregirls: Through the Moon Glass

Films

1972 - Drum în penumbră - as producer 1977 - The Last Wave (aka Black Rain in USA) - Ultimul val - as producer 1982 - Friday the 13th Part III (1982) (uncredited) ... aka Friday the 13th Part 3 (USA: video title) 1984 - Obsessive Love - (TV, story) - as writer 1986 - Death of an Angel - Moartea unui înger - as director 1988 - Emma: Queen of the South Seas TV mini-series - as writer 1994 - Nobody's Children (TV) - as writer 2013 - Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th - documentary film, as himself