János Szász

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János Szász at the 48th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in July 2013, where he won the festival's main prize

János Szász (born March 14, 1958 in Budapest ) is a Hungarian film and theater director.

Life

Szász studied drama and directing at the Budapest Theater and Film Academy. He worked as a theater director for four years at the Nemzeti Színház in Budapest and then at the Budapesti Operettszínház . In 1983 he made his first short film Tavaszi zápor . His film The Witman Brothers was shown in 1997 in the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes International Film Festival and also at the Moscow International Film Festival . His feature film Opium: Diary of a Madman was invited to Moscow in 2007 . In 2000, with the support of the Shoah Foundation founded by Steven Spielberg , he shot the documentary A Holocaust szemei about the Holocaust in Hungary.

Szász has been a lecturer at the American Repertory Theater Institute at Harvard University since 2001 , where he staged a number of plays.

The French novel The Big Booklet by Ágota Kristóf from 1986 was filmed by him under the Hungarian title A nagy füzet . The film won the Grand Prix at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival , which was rated as an important success for Hungarian cinema at a difficult time. Because A nagy füzet was the first production of the Hungarian National Film Fund (HNFF), which was re-established in mid-2011 by the national conservative government under Viktor Orbán against the resistance of many Hungarian filmmakers. A nagy füzet was also shown at the Toronto International Film Festival and was nominated for the 2014 Academy Award as a Hungarian film .

János Szász's father, Péter, was a prisoner in the Dachau concentration camp and survived the Holocaust . Szász sees himself threatened by the anti-Semitic groups that are openly appearing in Hungary and is thinking of emigrating from Hungary. In Budapest he is committed to a Holocaust memorial for the murdered Hungarian-Jewish children.

Filmography (selection)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ A Holocaust szemei in the Internet Movie Database (English) (2000)
  2. ↑ 48th Karlovy Vary IFF , 2013 at KVIFF (en)
  3. ^ Paul Katzenberger: Triumph for the "new Hungary" , at Süddeutsche.de , July 8, 2013
  4. ↑ Christoph Schmitz: János Szász 'film adaptation of Ágota Kristóf's novel “Das große Heft” , on Deutschlandradio Kultur , November 7, 2013
  5. ↑ Le grand cahier in the Internet Movie Database (English) (2013)
  6. ↑ see Péter Szász (1927–1983), director, in the Hungarian Wikipedia
  7. ↑ a b Anke Westphal: They sing “Jews, take the train to Auschwitz” , interview with Frankfurter Rundschau , November 9, 2013, p. 32f.
personal data
SURNAME Szász, János
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Hungarian director
DATE OF BIRTH March 14, 1958
PLACE OF BIRTH Budapest