Natalia Ghilascu is a Moldovan documentary filmmaker, investigative journalist, and television producer whose work explores historical memory, human rights, and the experiences of marginalized communities.
For more than fifteen years, she has reported on migration, minority rights, religious freedom, social justice, and political change across Eastern Europe. Her investigative journalism has informed her distinctive filmmaking approach, combining archival research with deeply personal stories that preserve voices often absent from official historical narratives.
Her latest documentary, The Exile from Bessarabia, co-directed with Sergiu Ene, documents the largely forgotten deportation of Roma families from Bessarabia to occupied Transnistria during World War II. Filmed across Moldova and the historical region of Bessarabia, the documentary preserves rare on-camera testimonies from survivors whose stories might otherwise have been lost. Since filming concluded, the eyewitnesses featured in the film have passed away, making the documentary an enduring visual record of their lived experiences.
The film has received international recognition, including the Best Human Rights Film Award at the Chicago Women Film Fest, Best Historical Film at the Berlin Indie Film Festival, the Special Jury Award at the Germany International Film Festival, the Award of Merit at the Documentaries Without Borders International Film Festival, and selection by the Woodstock Museum Film Festival in New York.
Natalia is a Humphrey Fellow and studied multimedia journalism and documentary production at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. Alongside documentary filmmaking, she produces television programs highlighting immigrant entrepreneurship, cultural identity, and civic engagement, believing that storytelling can preserve memory, foster dialogue, and advance human dignity across cultures.
Her work is driven by a simple conviction: that documentary cinema can recover forgotten histories, amplify unheard voices, and ensure that the experiences of ordinary people become part of our collective memory.
