Art documentaries of Peter Forgacs: Container List

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HU OSA 320-1-4
Fonds 320: Private Photo and Film Foundation Collection of Photographs and Home Movies
Subfonds 1: Films
Series 4: Art documentaries of Peter Forgacs
The Bartos Family (Private Hungary 1)/A Bartos család (Privát Magyarország 1.) (art documentary)
The first episode of the Private Hungary series tells the Bartos family Saga: a talented amateur filmmaker Zoltán Bartos, a chanson composer and lumber businessman made more than five hours of 9,5mm amateur film from the late twenties until the mid sixties. In 1944 the Hungarian “Quisling government” plundered the half Jewish Bartos family. Following the Nazi period, surviving the war in a Forced Jewish Labor unite, Zoltán divorced and remarry. Later the Communists rage the Hungarian citizen's life; in 1949 his plant was nationalized and lost everything again, except his humor.
Director: Péter Forgács; Producer: BBS, FMS Hungary/English language; 1988, DVD-ROM 60 min
Archival footage: Zoltán Bartos; Music: Zoltán Bartos and Tibor Szemző; Film editor: Márta Révész

Dusi & Jenő (Private Hungary 2)/Dusi és Jenő (Privát Magyarország 2.) (art documentary)
With an 8mm camera, a secret film diary was shot between 1936 and 1966 by Jenő, who could have perhaps been the one of the best cameraman of his age, had he not worked until 1945 as the senior officer of General Mortgage Credit Bank. The main actors of the Tabán spleen are Dusi and Jenő and the city itself, in snow, fog and rain, after the siege. This film is a sensitive memento of the vanishing life style of the 1930’s Hungarian middle class.
Director: Péter Forgács; Producer: BBS, FMS Hungary/English language; 1989, DVD-ROM 45 min
Archival footage: Jenő König; Music: Tibor Szemző; editor: Márta Révész

Either--Or (Private Hungary 3)/Vagy-vagy (Privát Magyarország 3.) (art documentary)
Sensual and unconscious, perhaps this is the best metaphor characterizing a “neo-Freudian-slip” film. Hungarian petite-bourgeois families find protection from the terror of communism in their private sphere and the ancient human dramas, muffled amorous dependencies, the hardly visible, but yet palpable relationships are grasped by the viewers’ eyes through coming into sight meditatively. In private life, everything goes on even if the spontaneous actors do not see what they look at. This film is exactly what it seems to be: the never before seen denouncer of invisible and sensual relationships.
Director: Péter Forgács Hungary/English language; 1989, DVD-ROM 43 min
The Diary of Mr. N. (Private Hungary 4)/N. úr naplója (Privát Magyarország 4.) (art documentary)
If, by luck, eternal love and world war do not cross each other's path, an idyllic life can be the reward. The film is the story of our heroes Mr. N and Ilona: drama and love embedded in history. Through the lens of 9.5 mm camera of Mr. N, the meticulous military engineer of Catholic faith, we follow the events as they were taking place from 1938 his private life –factory – public life triangle. All happens under the shadow of the historic drama of Europe. Mr. N’s evocative shots of the re-annexation of former Upper-Hungary – after the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia - following the revision of the Trianon Peace Treaty 1938. Mr. N’s boss, the convivial army contractor bears an awful resemblance to Rákosi, the communist dictator of later times... Mr. N has a special documentary message to us, comprising thirty years in the life of Hungary, visions of terror and dictatorships, peaceful home life and the 1956 revolution. A Hungarian family: they are looking at each other, at outsiders, and as we are looking at them, the hidden similarity of things dawns upon us.
Director: Péter Forgács Hungary/English language; 1990, DVD-ROM 51 min

Mutual Analysis/Kölcsönös Analízis (documentary film)
Day in day out, for fourteen years Zazie and I analysed each other. In a word, it was not a casual affair; our relationship was intimate but placid. One might say we served time and each other meaningfully, not indifferently. She would often come to me to discuss relationship problems, psychosomatic anxieties, fits of panic, passionate and frustrating friendships, parallel existences, the dreams of lovers, archetypical associations related to her ancestors. At other times, in an excellent mood, she'd be talkative, tenderly observe my wander over her eternal good mood, that friendly and tail-wagging attitude that was basic to her nature.
Director: Péter Forgács Hungary/Hungarian language/Voice-over: English; 2004, DVD-ROM 12 min

D-film (Private Hungary 5)/D-film (Private Hungary 5.) (art documentary)
A film diary that follows the life of filmmaker László Dudás for almost 50 years. László Dudás was a set-designer at the Film Factory and a passionate filmmaker. He made several films such as “Toldi” (1828), “Jazz”, “Tempo”. Later on he made several fiction films including “Silver Triangle”, “Do Not Give the Bank”. Through Dudás’s works, this film evokes yet unexplored works of Hungarian film history. “D-Film” is the first episode of a two-part series.
Director: Péter Forgács; Producer: Balázs Béla Stúdió; Copyright holder: BBS Hungary/Hungarian language; 1991, DVD-ROM 45 min
Music: Tibor Szemző

Photographed by László Dudás (Private Hungary 6)/Fényképezte Dudás László (Privát Magyarország 6.) (art documentary)
A film diary that follows the life of filmmaker László Dudás for almost 50 years. The second episode of the two-part series features fragments from several silent films including “Deadly Spring”, images of Italy in the 30s followed by secret recordings of the 1956 revolution in Hungary.
Director: Péter Forgács; Copyright holder: FMS Hungary/Hungarian language; 1991, DVD-ROM 45 min
Music: Tibor Szemző

Bourgeoisie Dictionary (Private Hungary 7)/Polgár szótár (Privát Magyarország 7.) (art documentary)
Private Hungary's roll call of family members is reminiscent of the grand and ghostly survivors assembled at the party of the Prince de Guermantes as described by Proust in the final volume of À la recherche du temps perdu, dining together, sharing good times, romance, intrigues, and jealousy. Because suppressed memory eludes direct address, this elegiac, silent mode with voiceover is Forgács' solution to the tragic fate of those who lie at the silent heart of books and films produced in this post-communist moment.
Director: Péter Forgács; Producer: Balázs Béla Stúdió, FMS Hungary/English language, Hungarian; 1992, DVD-ROM 45 min
Music: Tibor Szemző; Film editor: Márta Révész

Notes of a Lady (Private Hungary No 8)/Egy úrinő notesza (Privát Magyarország 8.) (art documentary)
We travel 'a la rechereche du temps perdue' with Baroness Jeszenszky, and her forgotten Hungarian aristocratic film diary, from her Buda villa to their Castle in Tolna County. The reanimated images of the past enchant us; the estate, the park, the harvest, the servants, the travels, the dogs the neighbors visits, the peasants, the hunting, the marriage. We witness a rarely seen, vanished universe of aristocracy that gradually disappeared with the War and seized to exist with Communism.
Director: Péter Forgács Hungary/Hungarian language/Subtitles: English; 1994, DVD-ROM 49 min
Music: Tibor Szemző; Film editor: Márta Révész; Cameraman: Zoltán Gazsi

The Land of Nothing (Private Hungary No. 9)/A semmi országa (Privát Magyarország 9.) (art documentary)
An amateur film journal sometimes contradicts the 'official', the so called 'public history' from a private history view. Sometimes offers a radically different, emblematic, or even banal aspect. But rarely may we see the unseen, a private view of the bloody WW2, diary footage of László Rátz that was never aimed for the public eye, made only for family memory. Rátz, ensign of the Second Hungarian Army, 18th Szekszárd Infantry, was shooting 9,5 mm family films from 1938. His private film eye just the observant's gaze around without ideological filter. This war film story begins with their entrainment in June 1942, and follows, registers the exhausting long march of the Second Hungarian Army through half the Ukraine. On the road side Ukraine people stare in to the camera. Reaching the Don River, the Second Hungarian Army was immediately thrown into the bloody and devastating clash with the Soviets at the Voronhez front. Rátz filmed until the eve of the catastrophe of the Hungarian Army at the river Don. He safely brought the films home on his Christmas leave 1942, so this unique chronicle survived…
Director: Péter Forgács; Producer: Balázs Béla Stúdió, FMS Hungary/Hungarian language/Subtitles: English; 1996, DVD-ROM 62 min
Archival footage: László Rátz; Music: Tibor Szemző

Free Fall (Private Hungary 10)/Az örvény (Privát Magyarország 10.) (art documentary)
Based on the home movies of musician, photographer and businessman, György Pető the film follows the Peto family in the years before WW II. Free Fall witnesses the illusions of a Hungarian Jewish family eroding step by step in the wake of fascism in Europe.
Director: Péter Forgács; Producer: Balázs Béla Stúdió, MTV Hungary/English language; 1996, DVD-ROM 75 min
Archival footage: György Pető; Music: Tibor Szemző;

Class Lot (Private Hungary 11)/Osztálysorsjegy (Privát Magyarország 11.) (art documentary)
The second part of the Pető family saga covering the period 1946-1971. Mr. György Pető and his wife Éva survived the war and continued filming the family events but the post-war footage is considerably different from the earlier images. What happened with the Petős after the war? Class Lot chronicles the postwar generation.
Director: Péter Forgács; Producer: Quality Pictures, MTV, BBS Hungary/English language/Subtitles: English; 1997, DVD-ROM 52 min
Archival footage: György Pető; Music: Tibor Szemző; Film editor: Márta Révész

Kadar's Kiss (Private Hungary 12)/Kádár csókja (Privát Magyarország 12.) (art documentary)
After 1956 the Hungarian Communist dictatorship under Party Secretary János Kádár was a "softer" version of the Soviet rule. But its double speak, repression and shameless ideological or political perversion contradicts the everyday life behind the doors of private homes. Kádár's Kiss ironically explores the Kafkaesque Hungarian life and politics juxtaposing the public and the private Hungarian histories. "It is said there is a celestial body in the universe, a single, the Sirius Beta cold and dead star a lusterless, heatless motionless body. Where the atoms tossed about and piled on one another, in disarray, as on a colossal junk-heap, rest perished. This is Sirius Beta, material par excellence. When man becomes materialist, or in other words, begins to believe that the world was and is of matter and he adheres to this material, and clings to it, and to him the material means gravity, environment, desire, religion, then man begins to feel obscurely that he is also a fallen and discarded, degraded and broken being tossed aside and on a junk-heap, stripped from contact with the spiritual forces of nature, detached from the cosmos, aborted through terrible catastrophe, his spiritual concern lost, and so he reverts and sinks."
Director: Péter Forgács; Producer: Balázs Béla Stúdió Hungary/Hungarian language/Voice-over: English; 1997, DVD-ROM 47 min
Music: Tibor Szemző

The Maelstrom -- A Family Chronicle (art documentary)
“The Maelstrom” uses a considerable cache of home movies shot in the Netherlands before and during World War II by and about the extended Peereboom family. We witness a Jewish family living unsuspectingly in the shadow of the Holocaust and then trying to cope with it still unaware of where it would finally lead to. We see them preparing for a trip to a "work camp" when their destination was in reality the nightmare of Auschwitz. A witness to time and history, this film transcends both and explores yet unseen realities of the Holocaust.
Director: Péter Forgács; Producer: Lumen Film Productions Hungary/English language; 1997, Beta SP 60 min
Music: Tibor Szemző

Meanwhile Somewhere... 1940-43 (An Unknown War No. 3)/Miközben valahol… 1940-43 (Az ismeretlen háború 3.) (art documentary)
Recontextualizing the W.W.II. time home movies, is juxtaposing the extremely different lives of Europeans. The patchwork images of the "Übermensch", the "Normal" and the "Untermensch" families in Meanwhile Somewhere offers visible evidence of the private aspects of the war. Hitler's plan was simple with most of the population of occupied East and Southern Europe, destroy or enslave them. In 1942 after the Wannsee Conference the European Jews deadly destiny was decided as the Final Solution. In Meanwhile Somewhere the intimate, the brutal, the happy, the rare or clandestine amateur shots of different European amateurs home movies and clandestine shots counter point a Nazi ritual’s film, the miscegenation’s racist punishment of the two young lovers, the eighteen year old German boy, Georg-Gerhard and the seventeen year old Polish girl, Marie in occupied Poland, Scinawa Nyska village, 1940. This public punishment film document is the rondo pulse through out the piece. Mosaics of suggestive different families images stories counter point the sadist shaving: a National Socialist performance lesson to the children of the German-Polish village. Meanwhile Somewhere’s elegy accompanied by Tibor Szemzõ's visionary music.
Director: Péter Forgács; Producer: Balázs Béla Stúdió Hungary/English language/Subtitles: English; 1994, DVD-ROM 52 min
Music: Tibor Szemző; Film editor: Zsuzsa Gönczi

The Danube Exodus/A dunai exodus (art documentary)
A travelogue that documents the Jewish exodus from Slovakia just before the beginning of World War II. In two boats, a group of nine hundred Slovak and Austrian Jews tried to reach the Black Sea on the Danube in order to get to Palestine from there. The returning boat witnesses the exodus of Bessarabian Germans, fleeing to the Third Reich from the Soviet invasion of Bessarabia. The film features the amateur films of Captain Nándor Andrásovits, the captain of one of the boats.
Director: Péter Forgács; Producer: Lumen Film Productions Hungary/English language; 1998, DVD-ROM 60 min
Archival footage: Andrásovits Nándor; Music: Tibor Szemző; Film editor: Kati Juhász

A Bibó Reader/Bibó breviárium (art documentary)
In his work Péter Forgács presents a poetic overview of the Hungarian terrain in the twentieth century, with the use of magically composed, scratched found footage. As before, he collaborates with composer Tibor Szemzõ, whose mesmerizing music glides us through Hungarian and Middle European history and landscape. A Bibó Reader brings us closer to the eternal and crystal-clear conclusions of the greatest Hungarian political thinker of the 20th century. István Bibó, philosopher, and minister during the 1956 Hungarian revolution, was sentenced to life imprisonment, but later released under an amnesty. He never gave up his faith in freedom. The sensitive rendering of Bibó's social and historical analysis, the meditative texts pace this unique film vision from one chapter to the next. The fascinating images and sounds offer the viewer the unexpectedly special and profound experience.
Director: Péter Forgács; Producer: MTV/FMS, BBSA Hungary/Hungarian language/Subtitles: English; 2001, DVD-ROM 69 min

The Bishop's Garden/A püspök kertje (art documentary)
An old man walks in his garden. The house and the garden are home to retired Calvinist church bishop László Ravasz. This is where the great orator has lived for many years ever since 1950 when Communist dictator Rákosi sent him into inner exile, to break the independence and backbone of the church. Between 1921 and 1948, he was one of Hungary's most influential and powerful clergymen whose archconservative personality, controversial ambivalence towards Jews left its mark on the history of the Hungarian Holocaust.
Director: Péter Forgács; Producer: MTV/FMS, BBSA Hungary/Hungarian language/Subtitles: English; 2002, DVD-ROM 57 min

Conversations on Psychoanalysis 1/5 Freud & Vienna Conversations on Psychoanalysis 1 Freud & Vienna/Beszélgetések a pszichoanalízisről 1/5 Freud és Bécs (documentary film)
Psychoanalysis as a conceptual system had absorbed a lot of intellectual elements that were present in turn-of-the century Vienna, or more widely the Austro-Hungarian or European cultural atmosphere at that time. Freud, just like Wittgenstein, Musil and a lot of others was a product of his age so he simply accepted a number of ideas that had been present in his environment. For instance the problem of the unconscious was such a concept. It was not discovered by Freud and it was not Freud who found out the existence of unconscious, it was not him who recognized the significance of sexuality, especially the significance of infant sexuality. But it was Freud who was able to create a unique synthesis from all of these elements and it was he who could somehow organize all these different ideological influences and sources into a theraputic movement. So as a possible answer to your question actually it is a myth that Freud thought up psychoanalysis alone or he would have had to fight his battle against a highly resistant society.
Director: Péter Forgács; Producer: MTV/FMS, BBSA Hungary/Hungarian language; 1993, DVD-ROM 53 min

Conversations on Psychoanalysis 2/5 Sándor Ferenczi & the Budapest School of Psychoanalysis/Beszélgetések a pszichoanalízisről 2/5 Ferenczi Sándor és a budapesti pszcihoanalízis (documentary film)
Psychoanalysis is seen as one of the most influential intellectual trends of 20th century, which came into being in Vienna at the end of the nineteenth century. Psychoanalysis profoundly changed the prevailing concept of the human psyche and established a theoretical and practical basis for modern psychological treatment. Its intellectual and cultural spread is still significant.
The most significant representative of Psychoanalysis in Budapest was the neurologist Sándor Ferenczi. He met Freud in 1908. Because he worked in a hospital, he met a large number of patients and his rich experience and exceptional personality had a decisive influence on Hungarian psychoanalysis. He had a lively relationship with the most prominent intellectuals of Hungary of that age, for example Gyula Krúdy, Frigyes Karinthy and Dezso Kosztolányi. He also had an impact on Mihály Babits's and László Nemeth's work. Although Ferenczi was one of Freud's most significant collaborators for 25 years, they put a different emphasis on various aspects of their work during their working lives. Ferenczi was primarily concerend with healing. In contrast to this, Freud concieved himself primarily as a scientist and a researcher. He did not want to find the cures for illnesses, he rather wanted to explore and understand them. It was no accident that Ferenczi was called "the expert of the hopeless cases". His devoted, understanding and generous behaviour as a doctor made him also famous among those psychologically ill patients whose chances of recovery had already been given up by other physicians. Ferenczi often refered to the capabilities psychoanalysis had in forming society and the importance of pedagogy. Not only the inner processes going on in people's mind captured his interest but also the relationship between the patient and the psychoanalyst. As opposed to Freud, who considered the analyst's neutral behaviour to be the pledge of psychoanalysis, Ferenczi rather believed in the healing power of a more active behaviour on the doctor's part. This was the fact in which he renewed psychoanalytic thinking.
He was the founder of the Hungarian Psychoanalytic Association in 1913. Among his most significant students we can mention the name of Michael Balint, who from 1939 on continued his praxis in England and Imre Hermann who ensured the continuity of psychoanalysis in Hungary after the Second World War. An interesting and special representative of the so called Budapest School was Géza Róheim, who made his mark in the field of anthropology and psychoanalysis. In these conversations, we trace the history of the Budapest School.
Director: Péter Forgács; Producer: MTV/FMS, BBSA Hungary/Hungarian language; 1993, DVD-ROM 53 min

Conversations on Psychoanalysis 3/5 Psychoanalytic View of Man/Beszélgetések a pszichoanalízisről 3/5 Pszcihoanalízis és emberkép (documentary film)
Psychoanalysis is seen as one of the most influential intellectual trends of 20th century, which came into being in Vienna at the end of the nineteenth century. Psychoanalysis profoundly changed the prevailing concept of the human psyche and established a theoretical and practical basis for modern psychological treatment. Its intellectual and cultural spread is still significant.
Perhaps it was not accidental that Freud's first significant and at the same time most original work "The Interpretation of Dreams" was published at the dawn of the 20th century. This book, as the standard work of the new science, laid down analysis of dreams to be the "royal road" to the unconscious, to still unknown psychic areas of man. Poets and philosophers had already known a lot about the secrets of the mind, but Freud was the first to grasp it in its entirety in "The Interpretation of Dreams". Here he wrote for the first time that dreams, just like psychic illnesses, were the results of the struggle between conscious and unconscious psychic forces.
The method of free association elaborated in the course of treatment made the art of listening to be the tool of healing again. The Freudian concept of man, just like Musil's novels and Schönberg's music, reflects the crisis of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the critical stage of liberalism of that time. According to the world concept of liberalism man is independent, free and rational in his thoughts, intentions and decisions. But Freud thought that a considerable part of psychic life happens unconsciously, and that man is not a "master of his own house". He is able to obtain knowledge of his genuine, inner drives by analyzing them carefully.
At the beginning psychoanalysis met resistance just like Kepler's and Darwin's scientific discoveries, as it called attention to the significance of infantile sexuality, that later became a stumbling block. Freud also threw light on the complexity of parent-child relationships and he called it the Oedipal Complex, after the ancient Greek drama. It was not easy to make all these acceptable in the contemporary, hypocritical Vienna, although Freud emphasized the controlling role of society and culture over the strength of instincts. In these conversations, we trace these ideas.
Director: Péter Forgács; Producer: MTV/FMS, BBSA Hungary/Hungarian language; 1993, DVD-ROM 55 min

Conversations on Psychoanalysis 4/5 Psychoanalysis and Present Society/Beszélgetések a pszichoanalízisről 4/5 Pszcihoanalízis és a mai társadalom (documentary film)
Psychoanalysis is seen as one of the most influential intellectual trends of the 20th century, which came into being in Vienna at the end of the nineteenth century. Psychoanalysis profoundly changed the prevailing concept of the human psyche and established a theoretical and practical basis for modern psychological treatment. Its intellectual and cultural spread is still significant.

Psychoanalysis tried to find answers not only to the problems of the individual but to social and cultural questions as well. Although society cannot be laid on the psychoanalytic coach, psychoanalysts still attempted to interpret social changes by analytic concepts. They tried to explain primarily the psychology of fascism and oppressive systems. As it is for the benefit of the individual if he tries to clarify the blind spots of his past, modern society also has to face its supressed tragedies. Psychoanalysis restores the continuity of the individual life and in this respect, for example, the present day working-through of the revolution of 1956 against Stalinism in Hungary restores the continuity of the collective memory.

While in Freud's age hysteria and other anxiety neuroses were typical, in present day culture we can find rather the self-loving, narcissistic personality and mess culture serving it. Among other things this is why psychoanalytic theory and practice has to be renewed to be able to meet these challenges. The criticizm concerning the scientific basis, the relativity of therapeutic truth and the effectiveness of treatment in psychoanalysis can promote this aim. In these conversations we concentrate on the relationship between psychoanalysis and present day society.
Director: Péter Forgács; Producer: MTV/FMS, BBSA Hungary/Hungarian language; 1993, DVD-ROM 53 min

Conversations on Psychoanalysis 5/5 Psychoanalysis as Therapy/Beszélgetések a pszichoanalízisről 5/5 Pszcihoanalízis mint terápia (documentary film)
Psychoanalysis is conceived as one of the most influential intellectual trends of 20th century, that came into being in Vienna at the end of the 1800`s. Psychoanalysis profoundly changed the prevailing concept of the human psyche and established the theoretical and practical basis of modern psychological treatment. Its cultural and intellectual spread is still significant.

Psychoanalysis is a psychological treatment that was called by the first patient, Anna O. the "talking cure". Freud wrote the following about it:

"I hold the plan of getting the patient lie on a sofa while I sit behind him out of his sight. Ehat the material is with which one starts the treatment is on the whole a matter of indifference - whether it is the patient`s life history or the history of his illness or his recollections of childhood. But in any case the patient must be left to do the talking and must be free to choose at what point he shall begin. We therefore say to him:"Before I can say anything to you I must know a great deal about you. Please tell me what you know about yourself."

"One more thing before you start. What you tell me must differ in one respect from an ordinary conversation. Ordinarily you rightly try to keep a connecting thread running through your remarks and you exclude any intrusive ideas that may occur to you and any side issues, so as not to wander too far from the point. But in this case you must proceed differently. So say whatever goes through your mind. Act as though for instance you were a traveller sitting next to the window of a railway carriage and describing to someone inside the carriage the changing views which you see outside. Finally, never forget that you have promised to be absolutely honest, and never to leave anything out because, for some reason or other, it is unpleasant to tell it."
Director: Péter Forgács; Producer: MTV/FMS, BBSA Hungary/Hungarian language; 1993, DVD-ROM 58 min

Episodes from the Life of Professor F.M. Portrait film of Ferenc Merei/Epizódok M. F. tanár úr életéből Merei portre (documentary film)
Mérei Ferenccel (1909-1986), a magyar lélektan kiváló tudósával nem sokkal halála előtt, a Balázs Béla Stúdió produkciójában, Forgácc Péter készített filmet A film operatőre Forgács Péter és Mész András.

“Nagyon viharos volt a serdülőkorom, amit megéltem... Nem tudom, miért, de valahogy vonzódtam a szabálytalansághoz. A szabálytalanság körülbelül az volt, hogy különböző furcsa, extrém csoportokhoz csatlakoztam. Így kerültem én először a Palasovszky csoportjához, de aztán gyorsan Kassákhoz. Ezen a képen lehet is látni, hogy én orosz inget viselek. Az orosz inget Kassák miatt viseltem...
– Hogyan ismerkedett meg a Tanár úr vele...?
– Nem tudom már, drágám. Mintha világéletemben ismertem volna... De az igazi ismeretség a Magdolna utcában volt, a Vasas Székházban, 1927-28-ban. Amikor ő hazajött Magyarországra. Akkor a felesége, Simon Jolán, csinált egy szavalókórust a Magdolna utcában, és oda jött meg Bécsből... Az Egy ember életéből lehet tudni.
Hát, Kassákról azt lehet mondani: amatőr volt... Nézd meg a képeit, ő nem tanult semmit. Sem festeni nem tanult, semmit nem tanult, sem verset csinálni nem tanult... Ezek őselemek... Később én Kassákot úgy tekintettem, mint az egész törzsünknek az ősapját, ő hozta létre tulajdonképpen, vele kezdődött a magyar avantgárd. Én Kasit nagyon megszerettem. Én nem mentem a szavalókórusba, de a Seman-kávéházba mindig elmentem, ahol ő összejött egypár emberrel. Többek között velem is. És akkor a Seman-kávéházban beszéltük meg, csináltuk az életet. Hozzá kell tennem, hogy én igazi vonalas voltam, sztálinista vonalas. Persze nem tudtam, akkor még, mi a sztálinizmus, de igazi vonalas voltam. Ő pedig, igazi ellenzéki volt már. Avantgárdista. És akkor ott a Seman-kávéházban jöttünk össze, ott találkoztunk. Akkor írtam is az ő lapjába, a Munkába néhány cikket, valami álnév alatt, már nem tudom milyen név alatt. Mindegy. Nyugtalanságomra is Kassák hívta fel a figyelmemet. Na, én innen tudtam meg, hogy nyugtalan vagyok. Ez a nyugtalanság tényleg végigment az életemen. ….”
Director: Péter Forgács; Producer: MTV Hungary/Hungarian language; 1987, DVD-ROM 110 min

Arizona Diary with poet György Petri/Arizonapló (documentary film)
The story of Arizona Diary seemingly is told by Péter Forgács: we see his pictures and hear his voice sometimes. In the diary the storyteller and the main character of the story is the same person. This role triples and splits in the Arizona Diary. The film is the document of György Petri’s, György Galántai’s, and Péter Forgács’ collective work journey. On the one hand, Forgács is telling the story of the three, on the other Galántai is gradually falling out, and Petri drifts to the center, and so Forgács’ diary is mostly on György Petri. The voice – the poem – is Petri’s, the hand – the camera – is Forgács’.
Director: Péter Forgács; Producer: FMS-HTV Hungary/Hungarian language/Subtitles: English; 1992, DVD-ROM 53 min

I Am Von Höfler, Variations on Werther I-II/Von Höfler vagyok, Werther variáció I. - II. (documentary film)
A glimpse into the intricate and fascinating fates of the generations of the great Pécs leather manufacturing family via the archival footage and accounts of Tibor Von Höfler. A double tale with faded images bearing witness to the 250-year saga of the Hungarian von Höfler family - an elegy for the last member of the family. Researchers have recently claimed that Goethe modeled his famous Werther on one of Tibor Höfler’s ancestors: this film presents itself in time and space with this double twist. Though Goethe's hero Werther is quite different from the real 18th-century Jakob von Höfler, the threads of the old and new legends of the Höfler saga intertwine in a double spiral of destiny within the turmoil of 20th century Central Europe. The real and invisible images of the melancholic hero, Werther - a literary destiny - intersect with those of the real life protagonist. Von Höfler's life, love, family, and fate.
Director: Péter Forgács; Producer: For-Creation Bt. Hungary/English language, Hungarian; 2008, Beta SP 160 min

El Perro Negro: Stories from the Spanish Civil War/El Perro Negro: Történetek a Spanyol Polgárháborúból (documentary film)
A fascinating look at the Spanish Civil War trough a collage of contemporary archival footage. The saga begins in 1929 with the talented amateur filmmaker, Joan Salvans, son of a wealthy Catalan industrialist, of Terrassa. The Salvans were admired as one of the most successful wool manufacturers of Catalonia yet also detested by the emerging anarchists and socialist trade unionists. On 24 July 1936, six days after the Civil War broke out, a militant anarchist group led by 'Pedro el Cruel' killed Joan Salvans, filmmaker, and his father Francesco Salvans. What drove the anarchist 'Pedro el Cruel' to murder Salvans? And why did the Spanish army revolt against the Republic 1936? While searching for answers we travel through Spain's chaotic decade with the images and stories of several amateur filmmakers and their memories including republicans, anarchists, Communist, Germans, Italians, and Americans.
Director: Péter Forgács; Producer: Lumen Film Hungary/English language; 2005, Beta SP 84 min

Miss Universe 1929: Lisl Goldarbeiter - a Queen in Wien/Miss Universe 1929 - Lisl Goldarbeiter - a szépség útja (documentary film)
Lisl Goldarbeiter's cousin, amateur filmmaker Marci Tenczer came from Szeged. He studied in Vienna, where he saved even his money for the tram to buy a camera and film and to pursue from time to time his passion for making films. It is through him that this bittersweet twentieth-century Austro-Hungarian life and family story unfolds. Lisl, who grew up in Vienna in modest circumstances, won the title of Miss Austria in 1929 at the Austrian beauty contest and finished second at the Miss Europe beauty contest in Paris. That year the beauty queens of the world set sail to the United States to compete against the American beauties in Texas. This is where Lisl was voted the first Miss Universe by a unanimous decision of the jury. Lisl, now suddenly world famous, received various invitations and an offer from Hollywood, and her company was sought after by many celebrities. She traveled extensively and, having rejected numerous suitors, finally married Fritz Spielmann, heir to a silk necktie fortune in Vienna. Marci Tenczer faithfully recorded it all and got off with much more than just a film.
Director: Péter Forgács Hungary/English language, Hungarian; 2006, Beta SP 70 min

Own Death/Saját halál (fiction film)
Peter Forgacs's visual interpretation of Peter Nádas' short novel "Own Death". A sensual travelogue, a story around one day of a heart attack - the nearest to the boundaries of life and death.
Director: Péter Forgács Hungary/Hungarian language, English; 2007, DVD-ROM 118 min

Hunky Blues - The American Dream/Hunky Blues - az amerikai álom (documentary film)
A documentary exploring the fate of hundred thousands of Hungarian men and women who arrived to the United States between 1890 and 1921. To tell their sagas the film weaves images from early American cinema, found footage, photographs and interviews. The film reveals the difficult moments of arrival, integration and assimilation, which eventually fed the happiness of the later generations and fulfillment of their own American dream.
Hungary/English language; 2009, DVD-ROM 100 min

With Time - The W. Project/Idővel - A W. Projekt (media installation)
Media installation at the Hungarian Pavilion, Venice Biennale, 2009.
Hungary; 2009, DVD-ROM 36 min

Online version updated: 6 January 2012

	HU OSA 320-1-4
Fonds 320:	Private Photo and Film Foundation Collection of Photographs and Home Movies
Subfonds 1:	Films
Series 4:	Art documentaries of Peter Forgacs