Iwona Piórko, the European Union's ambassador in Chișinău, said on Facebook on Sunday, 18 October 2026, that she had taken a part in the feature film The Winemaker's Daughter. It was, she wrote, her cinema debut. She did not name the character or a release date. She said instead that she hoped the film would make Moldova better known in the Union and beyond it.

The pictures she posted show her arriving at a winery in a car flying the EU flag. The gesture is a diplomatic cameo, not a review. Piórko was born in Poland, and the production is a Moldovan-Polish co-production: Realitatea Film in Chișinău, partners in Poland, and funding from Moldova's National Centre of Cinematography.

Shooting began in late September in both countries. Polish director Michał Szcześniak is behind the camera, Mihai Mănescu wrote the script and Igor Vlas is the cinematographer. IPN has listed Ana Dumitrașcu in the cast, with Valeriu Andriuță, Rafał Maćkowiak and other actors from both countries.

The story follows Catinca, a woman with a career in Western Europe, who returns after her father's death and finds the family vineyard caught in a corrupt scheme that mixes foreign interests and local complicity. She has to choose between the life she built abroad and a fight for the inheritance.

The film aims to show today's Moldova through an autumn of vines, not a tourist leaflet. The EU ambassador's presence on set ties diplomacy to a fiction project. It does not turn the film into a statement from the delegation.

Until a premiere, what we have is a set announcement and a credits list. Piórko's exact role remains unstated, and a Facebook post does not guarantee a festival run.

Image: David Stanley, Cricova winery, Moldova, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons; archive vineyard, not the September 2026 set.

Sources consulted: EU ambassador appears in The Winemaker's Daughter - NewsMaker; Filming has begun for The Winemaker's Daughter - IPN.