Arts paper by Pigniczky, Réka - Documentary film
The Life of László Hudec: In His Own Words
Type of Abstract (select):Abstract (max. 250 words):
The Life of László Hudec: In His Own Words
Documentary Film (26 min. 2011, Hungary)
Hungarian spoken with English subtitles.
Dir: Réka Pigniczky
László Ede Hugyecz (1893-1958) -- later L.E. Hudec -- was a Central European (Hungarian/Slovak) architect who fled the vicissitudes of Europe in the early 20th century, taking with him the style and knowledge of European building design and construction. His work – spanning nearly 30 years of Shanghai’s economic and cultural ‘glory days’ – includes the first skyscraper from London to Tokyo.
In 2008 new archive materials – including original letters, photos and 16mm film – surfaced from his descendants in Hungary and the U.S. These archives paint a complex and thinking man living at the crossroads between Europe and China. The new archive materials reveal the man behind the architect that even his children barely knew.
Through their testimony, through his incredible film footage, and through our research of his footsteps, his story gives an extraordinary inside look at the first rush of Europeans to China, of its first modernization (skyscrapers!), and of the turmoil of the 20th century. A perspective all the more fascinating that, today, once again, China looks like the new El Dorado.
Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Réka Pigniczky is a television journalist, producer and independent documentary filmmaker. She has worked for Associated Press Television News for over 10 years, both in New York and in Budapest, Hungary. She completed her first feature-length documentary, Journey Home: a story from the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, at the end of 2006. It won awards in Hungary and was invited to screen at a number of international film festivals. She completed her second feature-length documentary, Inkubátor, in 2010, which saw a wide audience in Hungary through a national theatrical release as well as television broadcast, and it enjoyed wide critical acclaim after the Hungarian Film Festival. The film was also voted one of the 25 best films released in Hungary in 2010.
56 Films is actively involved in Hungary’s documentary community, and Réka has taken part in a number of festival juries and international documentary projects. She is also a member of the European Documentary Network (EDN) and the International Documentary Association (IDA).
Réka has an MA in journalism and international relations from Columbia University in New York, and she also has an MA in political science from the Central European University in Budapest. She has a BA in Political Science from the University of California, San Diego. Réka was born and raised in the U.S. by Hungarian refugee parents, and has been living in Hungary since 2002 with her husband and three children. Réka spent the early 1990’s working as a political consultant and volunteer organizer for women’s NGO’s in Hungary.