Alina Șerban Makes History as First Roma Woman Filmmaker to Win a Venice Film Festival Award

Alina Șerban, actress, director, and longstanding ERIAC member, has become the first Roma woman filmmaker to win an award at the Venice International Film Festival. Her feature-film directorial debut, I Matter, won the Audience Award in the Venice Spotlight section at the 83rd edition of the festival. The European Roma Institute for Arts and Culture (ERIAC) congratulates Alina Șerban on this historic achievement, which speaks to the force of Romani cinema and the artistic potential of the new generation of Roma filmmakers.

In her acceptance speech, Șerban stressed the importance of the achievement in her journey of giving voice to characters who carry stories of hardship, courage and determination:

I Matter is about what it means to be a girl, to be Roma and to grow up in a foster care home. I dedicate this award to all the young people who deserve a better chance, who deserve to attend elite schools and make their voices heard. I dedicate it to those who dream of simple things, just as I did, and who deserve to be seen, to be heard and, above all, to be reminded that they have value.

Alina Șerban and producer Ada Solomon received the trophy at the Festival’s Closing Gala, held on Saturday, September 12, in the Sala Grande of the Palazzo del Cinema on the Lido.

The film has also been part of ERIAC’s Film Pitch Deck, the institute’s platform connecting Romani filmmakers with the industry, presented at Cannes in 2025 and 2026. The recognition in Venice reflects back on the platform itself.

ERIAC celebrates the film’s success and the milestone it represents, not only for Roma representation on screen, but for Roma communities worldwide, where it inspires pride.

I Matter

With her eighteenth birthday approaching, Rebeca, a young Roma girl, faces imminent expulsion from the orphanage she has called home. She clings to the hope that her father‘s release from prison will finally give her the family she has always longed for. When she is accepted into university to study acting, another world opens up to her.

But just as Rebeca begins to find her place there, her father is released — and turns out to be far from the superhero she had imagined. Leaving the orphanage becomes increasingly real: the home she has spent years wanting to escape is also the only one she knows. At university, Rebeca is tasked with a seemingly simple exercise: create a piece about „home.“

To complete it, she must reveal to her new classmates the very life she has been trying to keep hidden from them. Caught between the orphanage she is terrified to leave and the new life she is only beginning to enter, Rebeca struggles to keep her worlds from colliding. But as those worlds begin to close in around her, she is forced to make choices she can no longer postpone and to find a new way forward.

Cast: Denisa Farcaș, Sorin Mihai, Angelina Pavel, Vanessa Dancea, Raisa Mihai, Alexandru Stancu, Alina Berzunțeanu, Natalia Călin

Producers: Ada Solomon, Carla Fotea, Harry Flöter, Jorg Siepmann, Cassandre Warnauts, Jean-Yves Roubin, Dries Phlypo, Leontine Petit, Erik Glijnis

Production companies: microFILM, 2Pilots Film Production, Frakas Productions, Lemming Film Belgium