Event guide to the Hungarian capital

DESIGN WITHOUT BORDERS

OCTOBER 10 – NOVEMBER 28 KISCELLI MUSEUM, BUDAPEST Incepted 15 years ago, this is one of the region’s most significant dynamicallyevolving independent exhibition and all-arts event series. This year featuring the works of more than 140 designers, jewelry designers and visual artists from Austria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain and Switzerland in the Kiscelli Museum for a month. The name refers both to the ever-growing number of international exhibitors and the interoperability of the various art disciplines. The works, projects, objects and related events showcased in the exhibition emphasize the importance of productive interaction between the various disciplines of art – the visual arts, design, as well as the visual and performing arts. The selection highlights not only the artists, but also the role of social responsibility, civil society and creators in society, as well as the importance of networking.

design-without-borders.eu

BRIDGING EUROPE

SEPTEMBER 17–30 BUDAPEST–BERLIN The joint festival of Müpa (‘Palace of Arts’) Budapest and the Budapest Festival Orchestra always lends an exciting flavor to the start of the new season: besides classical concerts, it also features jazz, popular music and film screenings. At the center of each instalment over the years of this event series, launched in 2013, has been a country or group of countries with a rich and diverse culture and significant musical traditions – as a country's music says a great deal about its inhabitants. From 2021, the concept behind the festival is changing: although the focus will remain on Europe, within this context we will be partnering with another major cultural center and jointly organizing events in both locations, thus promoting the creation of co-productions between the two countries. This September, our partner will be Konzerthaus Berlin, meaning the building of a bridge between Budapest and Berlin. One of the high points of the Bridging Europe festival will be the concert by the Konzerthausorchester Berlin conducted by Iván Fischer, but also receiving an important role in the future will be the permeability between genres, including further developing bridges between classical music and jazz, early music and contemporary music. At the literary program to be held in the Festival Theater, Hungarian writers will recount their adventures in Berlin, and there will also be film screenings. EXHIBITION OF JOSEPH SZABÓ

SEPTEMBER 10 – OCTOBER 02 VIRÁG JUDIT GALLERY The independent creative career of Joseph Szabó, an outstanding sculptor and painter part of the 1956 Hungarian exile to Paris, is completely connected to France. Joseph Szabó's rich oeuvre is a great arc ranging from Expressionism, and Surrealism to Neo- Figurative art. He has exhibited regularly in Spain, America, Switzerland, Italy and France. From the 1960s onwards, critics mentioned his name among the best contemporary artists, and from the mid-1970s, he was named among the greatest Surrealist painters. A multitude of dreamy, apocalyptic visions followed by geometric, brightly colored figures, faces, grids, and stripes appear on his canvases. His monumental sculptures are on view in many French cities’ public squares.

viragjuditgaleria.hu

FIRST LISZT FEST INTERNATIONAL CULTURAL FESTIVAL

OCTOBER 8–24 BUDAPEST AND ESZTERGOM Musical rarities, world and local premieres, legendary ensembles, young talents, great figures of Hungarian and international cultural life: the first Liszt Fest International Cultural Festival is held between October 8 and 24. In addition to the classical music concerts, there will be opera and dance performances, a professional conference, organ concerts, evenings of contemporary music, treats in jazz, world and pop music, literary and visual art events, and unconventional open-air happenings throughout these seventeen days, on the stages of Budapest's most important institutions, as well as in numerous special venues, from the Esztergom Basilica through the Svábhegy Observatory to the Paris Department Store. While the Liszt Fest International Cultural Festival salutes Liszt’s genius, and offers a taste of his matchless oeuvre every year, it is not the sole focus of the event series, which encompasses all the arts and attracts international audiences by representing the artist’s spirit in countless genres, stimulating thereby contemporary creativity as well. It is no secret that the Liszt Fest is meant to act as a catalyst for the creation of new productions, and gradually connect Budapest with the other cities of the country, to make Hungary an increasingly attractive destination for cultural travelers, thus participating in the promotion of cultural tourism.

lisztunnep.hu

culture

EXPERIMENTING THE BONDS OF FRIENDSHIP

GRADUATION FILM ATTEMPTS TO POSITIVELY AFFECT REAL LIFE SITUATIONS ‘Triangle’, an English-Hungarian co-production graduation film at the Arts University Bournemouth by Hungarian director Péter Engelmann has attracted international interest. Now, he tells Diplomacy&Trade about this movie described as “a sci-fi pseudo-docu drama exploring the dark realms of the human mind.”

The story follows three strangers who are about to become friends for life, separated only by 36 questions. It is based on a 1997 psychological experiment on the bonds of friendship. “I had been interested in this topic for a long time and every time this issue came up in the news, I always felt a strong need to do something, but didn’t know what. Then, in 2018, when I was studying BA Psychology, I started to dive into this topic and since I had already studied film and already had the goal to be a filmmaker, I started to think about how I can make a short film about it and try to make a positive impact on the issue. I started to build up the psychological foundations of this idea, I decided on the aspects that I would like to focus on, but at that point I couldn’t find the story and form for it,” the director recalls. It was only last year, during his MA at the Arts University Bournemouth when due to the things they learned, the encouragement that came from the tutors to experiment and his transformation as a filmmaker in the course, he finally found the story and the form for this idea – and that was also the point when he brought in the psychological experiment by Arthur Aron – and then, Triangle came to life, he adds.

Combining filmmaking with psychology

As to how much the theme of psychology appeared in his professional career before, Péter Engelmann notes that when he went on to study BA Psychology in 2014, he already had a diploma in TV Studies and he was also about to finish Directing, Screenwriting and Editing courses at the Budapest Film Academy. “I knew that I would like to be a filmmaker. However, I always had a strong interest in psychology and I wanted to study it at the highest level, while in the meantime I also thought that by learning psychology I could also be a better filmmaker since I can use it in screenwriting, working with people and so on. In the first week of the course, I came across the theme of ‘pseudo reality’, which then became the main theme of my first short film ‘#HELP’ that I started to write just a few days later, so – having also Triangle in my pocket – I can say the plan has worked well so far.” Change of plans

Péter Engelmann studied in Britain but shot this film in Hungary. He explains that “in the middle of our second semester the pandemic came and although for the summer when our grad shoots would have occurred the situation became a bit better, it turned out that we couldn’t shoot in the UK. We had two options: waiting for the summer of 2021 or try to shoot it in a different country. For me there was no way to wait a year so – after a short and desperate search for countries where they speak English, since I wrote the script in English – I went back to my home country, Hungary, translated the script into Hungarian and there we could shoot it with no-to-minimal restrictions as the situation was very favorable. People tend to say ‘at the end it was better this way’, but this is truly the situation now, I can only say I’m so glad that I had to shoot this film in Hungary with this wonderful cast & crew. For that matter, although it is a UK graduation film, it was shot in the Hungarian language with only one person being British in the crew, our composer Sam Dinley.”

WHAT THE ACTORS HAD TO SAY

I was glad to work with a topic like this, I think this issue is still very relevant these days, unfortunately and it is very important to talk about it. However, in this film, I liked that the topic wasn’t pushed into our faces from the beginning, it slowly unfolds and we don’t really know what is going on, we aren’t prepared for what is coming. I think this is one of the main strengths of Triangle. (Lili Vetlényi)

From the very beginning, I knew that working with this issue won’t be easy. It’s a tough topic and an even tougher job to elaborate on it in a 20-minute short film. However, Péter was very prepared both during the writing process and working with us, actors. The crew was also great, we could open up to each other and that is very important while we are dealing with such a heavy topic, you just couldn’t do it if you aren’t surrounded by trustworthy people. (József S. Kovács)

This topic is really close to me. Due to my weak eyesight, I was bullied during basketball training when I was a kid – which, of course, was also done to everyone else. They called me blind...well I didn’t get the joke. However, later on, ‘being blind’ was the key for me to learn choreographies more easily as back in time during the basketball training, I was identifying my teammates through their moves, how they handled the ball, how they threw it and so on. Triangle has a very important message for me that I happily pass on through my acting. (Dániel Gaál) Favorable feedback

“Fortunately, we got very good feedback so far and the reason it is even better is because it is not just ‘oh I liked your film’, it is not just a classic good reception of the movie – which, don’t get me wrong, it is an awesome thing to hear – but several comments are related to specifically to the topic and how people looked back to their own actions, how it affected them in their own lives and hopefully, it will also give them something for the future. One of my main goals with the film, that I set out way back in 2018, is to try to positively affect real life situations and its participants related to the issue of the film. If it only happens to one person, it is already worth it. I’m excited to look forward to the upcoming screenings and feedback. I will try to be at as many screenings as I can in order to be able to interact with the audience,” the director points out.

A versatile artist

Péter Engelmann is listed on the international movie database IMBb primarily as editor, and then in eleven other categories. Explaining this versatility, he says with a smile that “it is a bit annoying that I can’t make it show writer, director first, and then editor, but the truth is the truth, I’m also a working editor and since people are looking for editors more frequently than I can shoot a film as a director, I have more film credits as editor than anything else. I’m also working on a film at the moment as an editor and colorist, so yeah…. I urgently need to direct a new film!” He adds that although his main fields are writing and directing, and then comes editing, he also likes cinematography, color grading and visual effects “while due to several reasons where budget is one of the main ones...I happened to do sound mixing, production design and of course producing in recent years. With Triangle, I decided that I will only do writing, directing, producing and editing and that’s it, but at the end, I had to do the color grading and the visual effects too, but I learned a lot while doing these, so, I don’t mind.” As regards his plans for the near future, Péter Engelmann highlights that since he finished ‘Triangle’, he started to focus on finding a job, “which, of course, is not an easy thing, but I’m on it. This is really time consuming, but in the meantime, I also try to focus on my future projects: finding the right idea for my first feature and developing a short story (or more) from the Holocaust.”