Can Togay

Shoes on the Danube Bank - Holocaust Memorial (Gyula Pauer and Can Togay, 2005)

Can Togay also János Can Togay (born August 27, 1955 in Budapest ) is a Hungarian poet , screenwriter , film director , actor and cultural manager of Turkish descent.

Life

Togay's parents emigrated from Turkey for political reasons. From the age of eight to fifteen he lived with his parents in Leipzig and then returned to Budapest. There he became a member of the theater group of Péter Halász , who co-founded the Squat Theater in New York in the late 1970s . He studied German and English at the Loránd Eötvös University in Budapest. He then studied at the Theater and Film Academy in Budapest (with Zoltán Fábri, among others ).

His feature film The Summer Guest was invited to Cannes in 1992 . With his second feature film Kinotraum he won the special prize of the Sochi Film Festival .

Together with Gyula Pauer he realized in 2005 to commemorate the shootings of 1944-45, the Budapest Holocaust Monument to Shoes on the Danube Bank .

Togay lives with his wife and three children in Berlin, where he has been director of the Collegium Hungaricum Berlin and counselor for culture at the Hungarian embassy since 2008 . Togay has been professor for story development at the Babelsberg Film University since 2014.

Filmography

Written and directed by

• 1981: Grand Hotel to the Abyss (Grand Hotel a Szakadékhoz) - documentary
• 1982: Tango - Time of Changes (Tangó - A változások kora)
• 1983: Man from Heaven (Ember az égből)
• 1984: The day of the devil (Az ördög napja)
• 1985: Volga - documentary, with Gábor Ferenczi
• 1991: The Summer Guest (A nyaraló)
• 1999: Cinema dreams (Egy tél az Isten háta mögött)
• 2004: The observed theater (A megfigyelt színház) - documentary film
• 2006: A Childhood in Europe (Egy gyermekkor Európában)
• 2006: Mutabor - documentary film

As an actor

• 1973: Petőfi '73
• 1974: Mozart and Salieri
• 1985: Colonel Redl
• 1986: Erőltetett menet
• 1988: Esther's book
• 1990: Malina
• 1991: Zsötem
• 1992: Blue Exile
• 1994: story in the fall
• 1995: Franziska's Sundays (Franciska vasárnapjai)
• 1995: Je t'aime
• 2000: In the shadow of the bridge
• 2002: Sniper 2
• 2006: Happy New Year
• 2007: get up!

script

• 1993: The Island (A sziget)
• 1996: Solar eclipse 2000 (Napfogyatkozás 2000)
• 1998: glamor
• 2002: In the shadow of the bridge (A Hídember)
• 2003: Down by Love (Szerelemtől sújtva)
• 2003: The hygienic person (A Higiénikus Ember)
• 2004: Tales from the Sunken Realm (Történetek az Elvesztett Birodalomból)
• 2007: How do you make friends? (A barátkozás lehetőségei)

Initiated and (co) curated cultural and media projects, selection

Film related projects

• Since 2008: Cinema Total . Annual film days for filmmakers from the (not only) East Central European region during the Berlinale
• 2011/2012: Hands on Fassbinder . 8-part conference series for filmmakers and those interested in film on the exploitation of Fassbinder's work for contemporary European film
• 2013: Cineromani . Film festival and multi-day workshops for Roma filmmakers

Intermedial research and exhibition projects

• Since 2009: German unity at Lake Balaton . A cinematographic installation based on private film recordings from the 60s, 70s and 80s. Previous stations of the traveling exhibition: Berlin, Dortmund, Cottbus, Mainz, Balatonfüred (Hungary)

Art projects, exhibitions, installations

• 2008: Pseudo in Berlin . A retrospective by Gyula Pauer, combined with an open-air installation in Chemnitz
• 2008: 9-11-38 . Sound art competition for the 70th anniversary of the Reichspogromnacht 1938
• 2010/2011: timescape - the construction site as an art object . Intermedial projection and sound art project
• 2011: Manifest Kassák! A double exhibition with the Berlinische Galerie
• 2014: The great illusion. Central Europe in the First World War or: The glasses of the unreal . Installation - literature - cinematography - photography on the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War

Scientific events, conferences

• 2008: Berlin - Budapest. Psychoanalysis behind the Iron Curtain . Biennial conference series on the history and practice of psychoanalysis on the Berlin-Budapest axis
• 2010: The psychoanalytic awakening . Second part of the conference series on the history and practice of psychoanalysis on the Berlin-Budapest axis
• 2012: The emigration of psychoanalysis . Third part of the conference series on the history and practice of psychoanalysis on the Berlin-Budapest axis

Sociopolitical projects

• 2010: Opportunities East. Opportunity and crisis area in East Central Europe . Political simulation game for students from the East Central European region
• 2014: Renegotiating peace. Versailles, Saint-Germain and Trianon in the simulation game . Large-scale, interdisciplinary business game project for European young people on the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War

literature

• 2009/2010: New women . Series of events with and about Hungarian women writers
• 2011/2012: preparation for Béla Hamvas. An outsider of the philosophers . Interdisciplinary series of events
• Since 2008: Leipzig Book Fair. Editing of the Hungarian stand (content, program, design)
• 2012–2013: Frankfurt Book Fair. Editing of the Hungarian stand (content, program, design)
• 2014: Istanbul Book Fair. Editing of the Hungarian host country appearance (concept, content, program, design)

literature

• Jürgen Haase , János Can Togay (ed.): German Unity at Balaton - the private history of German-German unity , Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-89809-086-5
• Ágnes Berger, Franziska Henningsen, Ludger M. Hermanns, János Can Togay (eds.): Psychoanalysis behind the Iron Curtain , Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86099-639-3
• Ágnes Berger, Franziska Henningsen, Ludger M. Hermanns, János Can Togay (eds.): The psychoanalytic awakening. Budapest-Berlin 1918-1920 , Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-86099-697-3
• Ludger M. Hermanns, Franziska Henningsen, János Can Togay (eds.): Psychoanalysis and Emigration from Budapest and Berlin , Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-95558-040-7
• János Can Togay, Corinna Erlebach (eds.): Cineromani - Empowering Roma Filmmakers , Leipzig and Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-933816-64-1
• Andreas H. Apelt, Robert Grünbaum , János Can Togay (eds.): The East Central European Freedom Movements 1953-1989. Opposition, uprisings and revolutions in the communist sphere of influence. Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-86331-164-3 .

Web links

• Can Togay in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Literature by and about Can Togay in the catalog of the German National Library
• Collegium Hungaricum Berlin