of Calugareni. His 1976 film The Doom was entered into the 10th Moscow International Film Festival. Mihai Viteazul (Michael the Brave) ruled the Romanian-speaking principalities (Wallachia, Moldavia, and Transylvania), a union he accomplished under his reign for a very brief period (1600–1601). It was initially planned that Sergiu Nicolaescu would produce Mihai Viteazul with Hollywood superstars playing the lead characters. The communist authorities of the time drastically ruled for an all Romanian cast. The obstacle, eventually, was circumvented by means of casting, in the lead role of Mihai Viteazul the actor Amza Pellea, who achieved a masterful rendition of the hero. Sergiu Nicolaescu was able, throughout his career, to select the best actors available for the characters they had to portray. Most of Nicolaescu's films are built around figures and events in Romanian history, and although showing superior mastery, in the (imposed) realistic approach they somewhat follow the patterns of historical movies from the Communist governed countries. During the Communist period, some of these movies were seen as ground-breaking through either their way of publicly presenting Romanian history, or the masterful depiction of the heroical dimension of its history. For instance, the movie "Războiul independenţei" was the first picture made during the Communist-era in Romania to describe a King of Romania (namely Carol I) in a positive fashion. On the other hand, Mircea (1989, also known as Proud Heritage) was considered by some critics as being a less artistically fulfilled endeavour. Nevertheless, Mircea was officially blocked from distribution, until the Romanian Revolution of 1989 ("All I've done was to present a different state leader than Nicolae Ceaușescu. He understood and stopped the movie [from premiere]"). Yet, when Mircea was finally released to the public the film was very well appreciated. Nicolaescu produced impeccable renderings of the historical battles and costumes. For example, through his reenactments of the Battle of Călugăreni in Mihai Viteazul and both the Crusade of Nicopole and the Battle of Rovine in Mircea, Nicolaescu shows a brilliant command of his craft, masterfully directing a huge acting crew (actors, extras, etc.) towards the rendering of accurate details, by these means forging widely successful movies. For instance, when making Mihai Viteazul, Nicolaescu successfully managed a 5,000-member crew, actors and extras and, despite the obvious technical limitations of the communication means in the 1970s (no mobile phones were available at that time, for instance), he imposed a strict discipline during