Filming and photo shoots in an interwar heritage house

A filming location in Bucharest, in a prime minister’s house

The house at 19 Polonă Street, Dorobanți, Sector 1, was granted its building permit in 1935 for the family of Gheorghe Tătărescu, Prime Minister of Romania from 1934 to 1937 and from 1939 to 1940. It was designed by the architects Alexandru Zaharia and Ion Giurgea in a Mediterranean style with Neo-Romanian elements, and it is a listed historic monument (LMI B-II-m-B-19435). EKO GROUP took over the house in June 2024.

For a production, this means something concrete: the set already exists. The white arches, the solid wood doors, the parquet and the ironwork belong to the house, not to a set designer.

Production formats

As a space for video shoots, the house lends itself to several kinds of project:

• commercials and product films, with a period setting;
• music videos and brand films;
• corporate films: management interviews, presentations, recruitment content;
• fiction or documentary sequences with an interwar look;
• editorial photo shoots and image campaigns.

The format of the day — filming, photography or both — is agreed with the team when you book.

The settings of the house

Four distinct visual registers under one roof: the salon, the library, the small club rooms and the courtyard.

The salon with Milița Petrașcu’s fireplace

The fireplace in the salon and the door surrounds are the work of the sculptor Milița Petrașcu, a pupil of Brâncuși. The apse that holds the fireplace gives the salon a clear vanishing point, a natural reference for interior shots.

The Premier’s Library

A library in hand-carved solid wood; next to it, in the Premier’s study, stands the Fichet safe, which has remained unopened for decades. An enclosed setting in warm materials, suited to interviews, portraits and close-ups.

Cigar Lounge, the Secret Poker Room and the Black Jack Room

Three small rooms with the atmosphere of an interwar club. The Cigar Lounge is available from 18:00 by reservation; for filming, the time slot is agreed with the team. In the games rooms, poker and Black Jack are social games, played without stakes — worth knowing when you write the script for a scene.

The 800 m² courtyard and the arcades

The U-shaped inner courtyard gives depth to exterior shots and accommodates wide shots without leaving the location. The succession of arches at the entrance works as a natural passageway between the interior and the courtyard.

A photo shoot location in Bucharest: editorials, brand portraits, corporate imagery

For an editorial shoot, portraits of your leadership team or an image campaign, each room offers a different mood: restrained in the library, luminous in the salons, high-contrast under the arches. A single series of shots can thus move from a formal portrait to an atmospheric frame within the same day.

The décor of the rooms comes from the collection of the Rădulescu Art Galleries, which numbers more than 15,000 pieces from the 17th to the 20th century. The works on display appear in frame as they are.

The house can also be seen on the ticketed guided tour “Art. History. Experience.”, Monday to Friday from 12:00 to 17:00 and at weekends from 12:00 to 19:00, with online booking.

What the house provides beyond the set

Alongside the setting, a filming day can rely on the facilities of the house:

• a dedicated event manager;
• high-speed Wi-Fi, including in the courtyard;
• 4K audio-visual equipment, screens with screen sharing and wireless microphones, for corporate shoots that include a presentation;
• premium catering and bar, with professional staff;
• 6 toilets;
• one event at a time: for the duration of the booking, the spaces you use are not shared with any other group.

Working conditions in a historic monument

Its status as a historic monument calls for clear working rules. Crew access, set-up, additional lighting, the protection of the flooring and furniture, and the length of the booking are agreed with the villa’s team before you book. We do not publish a fixed set of conditions, because they differ from one project to the next.

The house can also host a product launch documented in photo and video: the presentation is filmed in the salon, the interviews in the library.