This year, CineFest Miskolc International Film Festival pays tribute to two film legends. The Ambassador of European Cinema Award will be presented to actor Jean-Marc Barr on the evening of 2 September, before the screening of The Big Blue at the Miskolc House of Arts. The Festival’s Lifetime Achievement Award will go to director Tamás Almási at the closing gala on 9 September at 17:00.

Tamás Almási is a six-time winner of the Best Documentary Award at the Hungarian Film Week, five-time winner of the Film Critics’ Prize, and recipient of numerous awards from the Béla Balázs Prize to the Kossuth Prize. The awards are a recognition for the exceptionally sensitive filmmaker who, after his first feature film, the highly successful Ballagás in 1981, turned to documentaries and made a number of ground-breaking films. He has explored historical, social and personal themes with exceptional sensitivity. In documentaries, “I don’t invent the story, I find it,” he says. His films reveal the many faces and contradictions of Hungary before and after the fall of communism. Almási’s subject is reality, his partner is truth, his medium is film, his aim is not to judge but to show. Between 1987 and 1998, after his 1983 film Kölyköd voltam, he produced one of the greatest undertakings in Hungarian documentary filmmaking, the eight-part Ózd series (the first part of which, Szorításban is screened in the CineClassics program), which follows the personal fates of workers and managers and documents the period of regime change through the agony of the Ózd Coal Works. But he also portrayed the fate of Hungarians who migrated from across the border (Valahol otthon lenni), as well as that of female clothing factory workers (Kitüntetetten) and innocent convicts (Ítéletlenül). The private sphere is represented in masterpieces such as Szerelem első hallásra, Szívügyem (The Matter of the Heart) and Sejtjeink. Folyékony arany (Liquid Gold), which premiered at CineFest 2019, is the first Hungarian film about wine, while the highly successful Puskás Hungary brings the legendary footballer close to the people. The Ambassador of the European Cine award-winner of CineFest 2019 was Franco Nero, who played the leading role in Almási’s Márió, a varázsló in 2007. Professor emeritus at the University of Theatre and Film Arts, he has taught generations of students. “I believe,” he says, “that if I make a film, I become a better person.” Tamás Almási, 75 years old this year, has made more than 40 films.

On Friday, 8 September, at 21:00, the House of Arts’ Béke room will host a screening of Tamás Almási’s film Szorításban to honor him. The screening is free of charge.

Jean-Marc Barr is a true boundary crosser, and this is reflected in his art. He was born in Germany, his mother is French, his father is Irish-American, he is the godfather of the child of a legendary Danish director, his ex-wife (and the protagonist of his first directorial debut) is South Slavic. The French and English-speaking actor, who has played with natural confidence in films of all nationalities, has not lost the impish smile that made him world-famous and the idol of a generation in The Big Blue in 1988. Luc Besson’s film, which starred Jean Reno and Rosanna Arquette alongside Barr, was the most successful film of the 1980s in his country – and one of the most memorable French films ever made. He could have been a Hollywood star, but he stayed in Europe. He first starred in a Lars Von Trier film in 1991, and ‘Europa’ also marked the beginning of a long friendship. They went on making films together, such as the Cannes Grand Prix-winning Breaking the Waves, the Palme d’Or-winning Dancer in the Dark, Dogville, The Boss of It All and Nymph()maniac. Lovers, his directorial debut, became the first non-Danish film to bear the Dogma 95 stamp. Anyone who has ever seen this beautiful love story – starring Elodie Bouchez and Sergej Trifunović – will never forget the film. After directing three films and playing about 70 roles, Jean-Marc Barr, this year’s President of the Jury of the Miskolc International Film Festival, remains very active not only as an actor and director, but also as a photographer and a committed environmentalist.

In honor of the actor, Luc Besson’s classic The Great Blue will be screened on Saturday 2 September at 17:00 in the Uránia Room of the House of Arts. The Ambassador of European Cinema Award will be handed over here before the screening. This screening is free of charge.