HOMMAGE

Each year, the festival commemorates those Hungarian creative figures who have made a significant contribution to universal film history. The list is long indeed, since there is a near infinite number of Hungarians whose legendary (or unworthily obscured) careers have been of major importance in both domestic and international terms. Even when the storms of history or the desire to launch out on new adventures scattered these filmmakers and artists far and wide, still their oeuvres are tied in a thousand ways to the culture in which they started life, and many were able to create lasting values both here at home and abroad. Their examples show not only that movies are an unquestionably universal art form, but also how pure talent is validated in such an exciting environment full of challenges. We have put together a special compilation to pay tribute to the important Hungarian-born producer Andy Vajna who passed away this year, we evoke the life and works of Mihály Kertész, that is, Michael Curtiz, perhaps the best-known Hungarian film director, one of whose classics is Casablanca, and we have not forgotten our lead theme, the connection between music and film, either. We will be screening films made with the input of two important composers, even though they are not so well known in Hungary, one of the uncrowned kings of French chanson, József Kozma, known as Joseph Kosma, and the triple Oscar-winning Miklós Rózsa.