The Storyteller Who Chased Immortality: Corneliu Țepeluș and the Living Soul of Romania

The Keeper of the Flame

In every culture, there are keepers of the flame—those who carry the memory of a people across generations, adapting it to new languages, new screens, and new worlds. In Romania, one of those keepers is Corneliu Țepeluș, a filmmaker, storyteller, and cultural ambassador whose life has been shaped by the timeless human pursuit of immortality—not the kind that denies death, but the kind that ensures meaning endures. His work bridges the mystical and the modern, illuminating how story, heritage, and identity intertwine to define a nation’s soul.

Roots in a Village of Legends

Corneliu was born in Voșlobeni, a small village in Harghita County where the natural and supernatural still coexist. His father, a professor of history, filled their home with over three thousand books—a vast forest of pages where myth, philosophy, and human nature lived side by side. His mother was also a teacher, and together they passed down a reverence for knowledge that would shape his life. As a child, Corneliu studied Russian, French, and American classics, nurturing a fascination with the way stories reveal the nature of humanity itself. Yet his deepest lessons did not come from books. They came from the women of the village, gathered in the evenings to hear the Bible read aloud by a ten-year-old boy with a curious mind and a patient voice.

When the readings ended, the old women would lean in and tell their own sacred stories—half prayer, half spell. They spoke of love charms whispered into locks of hair, of powerful rituals to bless crop fertility, of dancing fairies enchanting men in the forest. They described boys following an old woman to the cemetery at midnight for a ritual to “make the table dance.” These women were devout Christians, yet also keepers of an older magic that defied neat boundaries. Through them, Corneliu glimpsed the mystery of Romanian spirituality—how belief and folklore, faith and superstition, could coexist in a single breath.

The Journey Outward

At eighteen, Corneliu began working as a tour guide and storyteller, leading visitors through Romania’s mountain landscapes and living traditions. By twenty, his path carried him abroad to England, where he studied performing arts in the very town where Shakespeare was born, returning each summer. In 1999, his journey took him to a U.S. cruise line as a photographer and cameraman, traveling through Jamaica, the Cayman Islands, and beyond. Later, he studied film in Vancouver, Canada, balancing his creative education with work as a ski instructor for five years, before moving to Los Angeles to study film production and work in the industry. Each step took him further into the world, but also closer to understanding what truly mattered—the narrative of belonging.

A Return with Purpose

When he finally returned to Romania, Corneliu carried with him a vision formed by distance and longing. For the past sixteen years, he has dedicated himself to telling Romania’s story to the world through television, public speaking, and documentary filmmaking. He founded Casta Films in Brașov and launched Interviuri pentru Speranță (Interviews for Hope), a media project that gives ordinary people a platform to share their voices and values. His approach is guided by authenticity; he believes that fame without depth weakens culture, while pride in one’s roots strengthens it. “When you have identity,” he says, “you have value.”

The Search for Immortality

That belief has shaped all of his work, including his most recent documentary collaboration with Dacre Stoker, the great-grandnephew of Bram Stoker, in a film exploring the myths and landscapes behind Dracula’s Castle. Yet Corneliu’s interpretation of the story avoids the sensational. He is less interested in vampires than in vitality and the way legends mirror a nation’s search for meaning and immortality. His own fascination with immortality is not abstract; it mirrors the journey of Gilgamesh, a hero who traveled the world seeking eternal life, only to discover that immortality resides in legacy, not flesh. For Corneliu, that legacy is Romania itself—its language, its stories, its unbroken spirit.

The Voice of Renewal

Today, Corneliu speaks openly about the need for authentic leadership, cultural pride, and balanced multiculturalism. He believes that Romania’s greatest weakness is not poverty or politics, but a failure to see the value of its own people and traditions. “Too many people are given a voice who have nothing to say,” he explains, emphasizing his desire to amplify those who do—teachers, artisans, elders, and villagers whose wisdom holds the quiet pulse of continuity. His mission is not to glorify the past, but to reignite it, reminding his fellow Romanians that tradition is not nostalgia; it is the foundation of renewal.

The Living Hearth

Corneliu Țepeluș stands at the intersection of worlds: a man of folklore and film, of mountain villages and global stages. In his voice, the old stories find new life. In his work, the hearth of Romania burns visibly again—not as a symbol of what once was, but of what still lives. “Through culture and traditions,” he often says, “the Romanian people are immortal.”

Sources

Personal interview with Corneliu Țepeluș, conducted by Jillian Aurora (HearthFinder), October 2025.

“Corneliu Țepeluș: Prin cultură și tradiții, poporul român este nemuritor.” Harghita News, 2025.

“Harghiteni cu care ne mândrim – Corneliu Țepeluș.” Informația Harghitei, 2025.

“Corneliu Țepeluș, despre cum a prins drag de a povesti cu lumea.” Cuvântul Liber, 2024.

“Corneliu Țepeluș și documentarul ‘În căutarea Castelului Dracula’.” Life.ro, 2023.