Dialëktus Festival/1
The director and cinematographer Klara Trencsenyi and her husband, anthropologist Vlada Naumescu made the beautiful documentary Birds Way that was reviewed on this site some months ago. In the review I used the words ”hospitality and openness” and they could very well be used again to characterize how Trencsenyi welcomed her colleagues from Poland, Slovakia and Hungary in the workshop she organised in the framework of the Dialëktus festival, see more about that below.
The workshop was named ”My Deer. Project Development Workshop” and had the very simple aim to have the 9 projects looked at, discussed, rewritten and/or re-edited for the trailers that had been made for presentation at the workshop, where Hungarian director and professor Andras Peterfly and I were the teachers.
Projects included ”Cracow by Polanski” based primarily on the autobiography of the director and presented by the Polish producer Jarek Manka. There was the very promising ”Hungarian Style” (photo) about Hungarian men with impressive moustaches – manhood and patriotism – to be directed by Nora Lakos. ”A Place to Win” by Petra Pelsöczy about old people from Budapest who won a flat in Lotto half a century ago. ”Regina Jonas” by Diana Groó who has a strong filmography of fiction films, animation and documentaries, many of which, like this about the first female rabbi, are Jewish stories. ”Rise of the Snow Leopard” by András Kollmann, a film about a mountain climber who had one leg amputated but wants to go back to climb. The charming ”Roma Rally” by Gabor Hörcher about two young romas who fix cars and want to compete in a race. And another gypsy story by Iraqi director Koutaiba Al-Janabi, himself a foreigner in Hungary, ”7 Days with Gypsies”, it had a great trailer. And ”Young Forever” by Diana Fabianova who will go from menstruation (her first film, ”Moon Inside You”) to questioning the aging.
The film projects were at the end of the week presented to a panel, that included representatives from Hungarian and Czech television, a film critic, an experienced producer, a festival director and a represenative from IDF, Institute of Documentary Film in Prague. One project which is in its editing phase, ”Wonderful Gladiators”, produced by Hungarian HBO, and made by Zsofia Varga-Kabarcz and Panna Boros, was not pitched but I had the privilege to watch a trailer from this film about mentally handicapped actors – looked great, the finished film will travel.
To read about the projects, go to
