Two Gifted Film Makers and Their Taxi Driver Die In Car Crash

Film director Cristian Nemescu, 27, and sound engineer Andrei Toncu, 28, died Thursday night in a car crash on Eroilor Bridge in Bucharest.

Nemescu and Toncu traveled in a taxi which was hit by a Porsche Cayenne SUV driven by Ali Imran, 29, a British citizen residing in the United Arab Emirates. Imran did not stop at the red light. The speed dial on the SUV had frozen at 140 kilometers per hour, at the moment of the crash.

The taxi driver Dumitru Arustei, 24, died along the two passengers in his car.

The emergency crews arrived at the crash site were able to get the three bodies out of the car only after one hour of work. Another taxi driver stopped at the red light on the opposite side of the bridge witnessed the crash. Carol Mihai said he heard a big crash sound and then saw a car flying through the air.

The taxi hit by the SUV was first projected into an outdoor sign and then hit again by the SUV.

All five people in the SUV were hurt and taken to hospital. They were four British citizens and one Romanian.

Imran was questioned all Friday by police and in the evening the court decided to order his arrest on a 29-day mandate for involuntary manslaughter.

Imran said the he came to Romania this week on business. The British Embassy was informed one of its citizens is under investigation for the car crash.

Nemescu graduated the Academy for Theater and Film in 2003. His work was awarded in over 20 festivals all over Europe, in the Americas and Asia.

The film he made during his final year in the university, called "Story from the third block entrance" got the award of the "NYU International Student Film Festival," New York, and the "UIP" at the "Premiers Plans" section of the Angers Film Festival, in France. It was also nominated by the European Academy Awards as "The best short film."

"Marilena from block P7" was the film Nemescu entered the Cannes competition this year.

In 2007 he was due to launch his first feature film, "California Dreaming," starring Armand Assante.

Toncu worked on three movies with Nemescu, and to other feature films like "The lamp with a hat," "To Kill a Killer," "Heaven," and "Human & Bread."

Their deaths remind us the similar fate two years ago of rock star Teo Peter, who died while traveling in a taxi. In a carbon-copy accident, an SUV driven by an American citizen ran at over the legal speed into the taxi.