The Romanian film industry was in shock this weekend on hearing the news that director Cristian Nemescu, one of its most promising young filmmakers, had been killed in a traffic accident in Bucharest early on Friday morning.

A graduate of the Romanian National Academy of Drama, 27-year-old Nemescu had directed several short films including Mihai And Cristina - Life Stories , C-Block Story - which was nominated for the Best Short Film at the 2004 European Film Awards - and the 45-minute Marilena From P7 which was shown in the Critics' Week in Cannes this year.

This last film had then had its US premiere at the Brooklyn Film Festival at the beginning of June.

Nemescu had just been putting the finishing touches to his first full-length feature film California Dreaming, starring Armand Assante and Jamie Eldman, and had been returning home from working on the film's post-production when the taxi he was travelling in was hit by another vehicle in the Romanian capital.