Valeriu Gagiu was born on 1 May 1938 in Chișinău. He started his creative activity as a poet and journalist. In 1958-1963, he attended the Scenarios Faculty at the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography a.k.a. VGIK, is a film school in Moscow, Russia. Since 1962, he has been a member of the Writers' Union and a member of the Union of Cinematographers. Since he was a student, he began to collaborate with the film studio "Moldova-film", and in 1961, he wrote the screenplay for the movie "Man goes after the sun". In 1960s his works were focused on poetic film proclamation, he wrote the screenplay for the such a movies like "When the Cocks Go" , "The street is listening" and "The Taste of Bread" . In 1966, he debuted as a movie director with the "Taste of Bread" where the screenplay was written by him together with Vadim Lisenko. Then, directed the move "Ten winters for one summer". In the 1970s, he directed the movie of historic and revolutionary character: "Delayed Explosion" , "The last Outlaw", "After the beast" etc. After making the musical - "Where is love" , Valieriu Gagiu screened various works of classical literature: "The history of one golden coin" , "The Mysterious Prisoner" , "The kites do not share the prey" , "The street of lamps off" , "After the footsepts of Miorița", etc. In the 1990s, Valeriu Gagiu's work focused on the genre of documentary film. During the Romanian Revolution of 1989, Valeriu Gagiu is one of the few Moldovan filmmakers to have captured the dramatic pages of the events of that time, making the documentary feature film"Bloody Christmas". In 1992, he was next to the first line Moldavian combatants and volunteers during the armed conflict on the Dniester river, and wrote the play "The Duet for two snipers" reflecting some images of this war. Since 2000, Valeriu Gagiu works as a professor at the Academy of Music, Theater and Fine Arts in Chișinău, teaching film and scripting courses. He was an artistic director of several projects at the Moldova-film studio. Valeriu Gagiu died on 21 December 2010 in the city of Chișinău at the age of 72.
Awards
Valeriu Gagiu has won different awards at several film festivals, namely:
Best Screenplay award at the Alma-Ata Union Film Festival and Kazakhstan Special Writers' Union Award for The Last Outlaw;
Special diploma at the Unique Film Festival "For the one day";
The Jury Diploma at the Vilnius Unique Film Festival for the movie "Where is love?";
As a recognition of his merits, he was awarded the title of Emeritus Master of Art of M.S.S.R., honorary member of the Nika International Film Academy of Russia;
The Jury Award for Best Actress at the Tveri Film Festival for the move "The kites do no share the prey";
The Jury Award for Best Documentary at the DaKino International Film Festival in Bucharest ;
