In the beginning of his career he directed only short films: Venice in September (1983), Thirty Years of Insomnia (1984), and Backstage (1988).

Caranfil made his feature film debut with E Pericoloso Sporgersi (1993) and continued with road movie comedy Asfalt tango starring Charlotte Rampling (1996) and with Dolce far niente (1998).

[citation needed] Nae Caranfil wrote the screenplay for all his movies and worked on the music for the first two of them (E Pericoloso Sporgersi and Asfalt-tango).

The story is based on the 1959 bank robbery in Communist Romania for which a group known as the Ioanid Gang were convicted and sentenced to death.

Closer to the Moon stars Mark Strong, Vera Farmiga, Harry Lloyd, Joe Armstrong, Christian McKay, Tim Plester, Anton Lesser, and Allan Corduner.