Abstracts of Submitted Papers 2014

Megmaradni (Heritage): A Documentary Film by Réka Pigniczky

Type of Abstract (select):

Abstract (max. 250 words):
„And so the years passed, and later I started to think about how it was possible to live a Hungarian life outside of Hungary.” (László Böjtös, Cleveland, Ohio)

Réka Pigniczky’s latest documentary addressing the issues of cultural identity, Heritage portrays the generation who fled Hungary after the Revolution of 1956 and who made their home in the United States. Only a small percentage of this group held onto their Hungarian identity, but for those that did it held a sense of mission. From Hungarian school and scouting to folk dance ensembles and church groups – even sports teams – the parents of this generation instilled Hungarian language, culture and identity into their children through a unique Hungarian “incubator.” Heritage is a collection of interviews with this group of Hungarian refugees and never before seen archive film footage of their first years in the U.S. Cast: László Böjtös, Szabolcs Kálmán, Kálmán Magyar, Andrea Mészáros, dr. Károly Nagy, Ödön Szentkirályi, and Katalin Vörös.
(2013, 65 min., English subtitles)



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Réka Pigniczky is a television journalist, producer and independent documentary filmmaker. She worked for the Associated Press Television News for nearly 15 years, both in New York and Central Europe. She completed her first feature-length documentary, Journey Home: a story from the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, in 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. It was released theatrically in Hungary as well as on television, 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. Réka also directed an ethnographic film (Kazár: from the Cradle to the Grave, 2008) and a short biography about László Hudec, a Hungarian architect working in Shanghai and credited with building the first skyscraper in Asia in 1938. She recently released her third film dealing with the issues of cultural identity: Heritage (Megmaradni, 2013).
Réka and her family recently moved back to the U.S. and her company, which she co-owns with Barnabás Gerő, is based in both Budapest and San Francisco. Apart from making films, she also freelances as a reporter/director for Duna World Television. She holds degrees in political science from the University of California, San Diego and the Central European University. She received her master’s degree in international affairs and journalism from Columbia University in New York.

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Budapest: An American Quest. A Family's Journey to 1920s Hungary. (Documentary film)

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
BUDAPEST: AN AMERICAN QUEST, A Family’s Journey to 1920s Hungary, is an award-winning documentary short film of reverse migration with a twist: two Americans go back to Budapest in the 1920s, fall in love, start a family and live in Hungary from 1925-1935. The filmmaker finds a box of their romantic 16mm black and white original footage from the 1920s, and intrigued by these beautiful mysterious images, sets off on her own quest to discover her family's hidden story.

BUDAPEST: AN AMERICAN QUEST, A Family's Journey to 1920s Hungary was the Official Selection at IFFCA, the International Film Festival of Cinematic Arts in Los Angeles, and at the International Conference on Jewish Genealogy in Boston 2013. At the Berkeley Video Film Festival BUDAPEST: AN AMERICAN QUEST won the Grand Festival Award for BEST ETHNOGRAPHIC FILM.



Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Lynn Schneider is a Berkeley Filmmaker who found a box of 16mm film footage of her family in Budapest after her father died suddenly at age 54 in California. The filmmaker has a B.A. in Anthropology from the University of California at Berkeley, and an M.A. in Teaching English as a Second Language from San Francisco State University. She currently works as a Professor of English as a Second Language at City College of San Francisco.

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Life and Work of Painters Elizabeth Sass Brunner and Elizabeth Brunner

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Abstract (max. 250 words):
The life and art of Elizabeth Sass Brunner (Nagykanizsa 1889 - Naini Tal 1950) and her daughter Elizabeth Brunner (Nagykanizsa 1910 - New Delhi 2001), who travelled to India in 1930 upon Rabindranath Tagore's invitation and remained there for life, has become topical for several reasons. It was the exotic appeal of their lives surrounded by legends rather than their painting that has attracted the greatest interest so far. In Rózsa G. Hajnóczy's book The Fire of Bengal a lopsided, biassed picture is given of the two "Bessies" as she called them. In Rózsa G. Hajnóczy's book The Fire of Bengal a lopsided, biassed picture is given of the two "Bessies" as she called them. The fact alone that a little known paintress and her daughter left their small native town Nagykanizsa for India without any preliminary preparations and lived in Rabindranath Tagore's Santiniketan compund kindled the curiosity of generations. That their memory did not sink into oblivion owed to the above mentioned popular novel for a long time.
The deep and close friendship between the Brunners and Rabindranath Tagore, Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharial Nehru, R. Radhakrishnan, Indira Gandhi or the Dalai Lama and others were often stressed as catalyst in the political relations between the two countries. As regards the viewpoint of art history, hardly any meaningful assessment of their work was done or published.


Brief Professional Bio (max. 100 words):
Lilla Szabó, art historian, was born in Bratislava. She received her degree in History of Art at the Hungarian Language and Literature faculty of the Eötvös Loránd University. She completed her doctorate at the ELTE's History of Art department in 1983; the topic of her dissertation was the medieval architectural history of the Saint Martin coronation church in Bratislava. She has worked at the Hungarian National Gallery since 1979. Since the nineties, her main area of interest has been the cultural relationships within the Central European region during the period between the two world wars and research into the lives and work of Hungarian artists who lived or are still active outside the borders of Hungary in the neighbouring countries and around the world. She publishes regularly, is the author of several monographs and has held many lectures and organised varied exhibitions both in Hungary and internationally. She has spent longer periods abroad completing research in Germany (1988), India (1995; 2003) and the USA (1997; 2009). Fulbright Grand research scholar (2011-2012, New Brunswick).

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