CINEFEST'S FILM HISTORY SERIES

Parton: István Szabó

CineFest has been focusing on film historical issues for many years now: parallel to showing the young filmmakers’ best works of new initiatives, we regard it very important to popularize the rich Hungarian and Central European film traditions, either. There are several great artists in the international film industry who have Hungarian and Central European origins but who are not really well known in their native Hungary. In 2008, we were engaged with Béla Zitkovszky, the director of the first Hungarian film titled ‘A táncz’ (Dance). In 2009, Emeric Pressburger was in the focus: the Oscar winner British-Hungarian scriptwriter-director, born in Miskolc, was honoured by his grandson, the Academy Award winner Kevin Macdonald. Since 2010, the festival’s film historical programs are joint under CineClassics, organized by Péter Muszatics, a block including several screenings, conferences and exhibitions. In 2010, the Korda brothers, Sir Alexander, Zoltán and the Oscar winner Vincent, were in the limelight. An international conference introduced Zoltán, the undeservedly least known Korda, with the participation of the British film historian Charles Drazin, Zoltán Korda’s son David Korda and the splendid British-expert Ferenc Takács.

CineClassics is going to be engaged with István Szőts, Krzysztof Kieslowski and Gabriel Pascal in 2011.

István Szőts is not world-famous and not of Hungarian origins – he is “simply” Hungarian and made his two masterpieces, the now 70-year-old Emberek a havason (People On The Alps) and Ének a búzamezőkről (A Song About Wheat Fields) in Hungary, in Hungarian. We are going to celebrate the directors’s 100th birthday in June 2012, but besides these anniversaries we have more reasons for dealing with him. Szőts' films, those few that he managed to shoot, are more topical than ever. He was the first Hungarian filmmaker to have international success; he won an award in Venice in 1942, and Vittorio De Sica, Cesare Zavattini and many others wrote about him with great appreciation, mentioning him among the forerunners of neorealism. Szőts’s moral attitude is exemplary. Furthermore, his Pamphlet on Hungarian Film Culture, 1945, is more up to date than ever, serving as a guide at the present reformation of national film trade. From 17th September, CineClassics honours him, one of the greatest figure of the Hungarian filmmaking with an exhibition in Miskolc Gallery (Rákóczi u. 4.), and on 23rd September with a retrospective and a conference organized by Judit Pintér and Péter Muszatics.

Krzysztof Kieslowski, the Polish director became world famous about two decades ago, at the time of the Central European regime changes. Our extensive exhibition, based on the materials of the Łódz Film Museum, in the House of Arts (Rákóczi u. 5.) introduces the director’s life, career and films. In the presence of Krzysztof Wierzbicki, Kieslowski’s former assistant and the member of the CineFest international jury in 2011, we are going to screen his splendid Kieslowski portrait I Am So So.

And finally a titbit: only very few know the story of Gabriel Pascal, the orphan from Arad, Hungary who appeared in London in the 1930s and to everyone’s amazement, managed to get the film rights from Bernard Shaw, the extremely reserved playwright, who was particularly dismissive with the filmmakers. So, Pygmalion was shot with the co-direction and starring of Leslie Howard, Major Barbara with Rex Harrison and Ceasar and Cleopatra with Vivien Leigh; and this is how many elements of Hungarian relation were included in My Fair Lady, either. The details are going to be explained by Ferenc Takács’s lecture and Pál Sipos’s portrait on 18th September.