D.I.S.

Dumitru Ion Suchianu or Sucheanu, most often shortened to D. I. Suchianu or D.I.S., was a Romanian essayist, translator, economist and film theorist, also noted for his participation in politics. The son of a distinguished Armenian teacher-editor and his Romanian socialist wife, he was acquainted with, and inspired by, writer Ion Luca Caragiale, who visited his childhood home. Attending Iași's Boarding High School in the 1910s, he formed a lasting bond with Mihai Ralea. The two young men went on to study together at the University of Paris, where they earned their credentials as social scientists and political thinkers; Ralea also married Suchianu's sister Ioana. Their careers were tied to Viața Romînească magazine, put out by their mentor Garabet Ibrăileanu. It was here and in Adevărul newspaper that Suchianu made his reputation as a polemicist and essayist. His early writings tackled a variety of subjects, from political biographies and world affairs to legal history, a subject which also preoccupied him during his successive mandates at the Legislative Council. After 1927, he became directly involved in the ideological and aesthetic steering of Romanian cinema, as a columnist, film historian, censor, and eventually producer.