First International Film Celebration Festival in Pecs
(28 September to 2 October 2005)

by Ron Holloway

KINO online (3 October 2005).To launch a major international competitive film festival within the short span of eight weeks may seem foolish to some – indeed, downright impossible! But this is Hungary – with an audience primed over the years for quality national cinema and internationally acclaimed auteur directors. Still, for the First International “Film Celebration” Festival in the Hungarian city of Pecs ), its organizers had to compete for quality film fare with other key festivals on the already crowded autumn calendar. That’s when a trio of veteran Hungarian directors appeared on the scene – Miklos Jancso (Szegenylegenyek / The Round-Up, 1965) as jury president, Andras Kovacs (Hideg napok / Cold Days, 1966), and Peter Bacso (A tanu / The Witness, 1969/77) – to offer their support. And this vital regional festival in Central Europe, a newcomer with a “Golden Benjamin” prize (tipping its hand as the youngest festival on the calendar), was off and running with a competition for young filmmaking talent from neighboring countries – and a hit from the start. To be sure, Pecs (“Quinque Ecclesiae” in Latin, “Fünfkirchen” in German, “Five Churches” in English) will grow in prestige and importance right up to 2010, when this picturesque university town in southwestern Hungary may well become the European Cultural Capital (provided Budapest doesn’t usurp the privilege).

The success of the first “celebration” can be credited to a festival tradition dating back to the 1960s, when Pecs alternated biannually with Budapest to present the Hungarian Film Week. Furthermore, the city has a rich cultural tradition dating back to 1367, when the University of Pecs (known today as Janus Pannonius University) was founded. The Zsolnay factory in town is famous for its ceramics, the nearby Harkany Spa draws visitors from across Europe, and the vineyards in the area date back to Roman times. All this, plus improved highways to link Pecs with Graz in Austria, Zagreb in Croatia, Ljubjana in Slovenia, and Novi Sad in Yugoslavia – all as easy to reach as is the short drive to Budapest. No wonder Pecs is focusing its attention on an international festival to showcase the flourishing filmmaking talent in Central Europe.

Queried as to why a Ukrainian films was included in this year’s lineup of Central European competition entries, festival director Denes Szekeres granted that an exception had been made in view of the fact that “this is the year of Russian culture” with an Eisenstein Exhibition on display and special screenings of Kalatozov’s The Cranes Are Flying (USSR, 1957) and Tarkovsky’s Ivan’s Childhood (USSR, 1962) in the Information Program. “Also, since the Orange Revolution in Kiev is currently being documented by veteran Ukrainian director Sergiy Maslovoyshchykov, we decided to invite him to show his Sum vitru (The Sound of the Wind) in Pecs and to participate in some roundtable discussions. Who knows, the Ukraine may one day be a member of the European Union.”

György Karpati, in charge of International Relations, threw some more light on the portfolio of the festival. “Although we didn’t have much time to advertise the festival in advance, we were able to use the Internet effectively (www.filmunnep.hu) to get the message across in both Hungarian and English. The result is there to see: for a first-time festival the competition is quite representative of quality film production in Central Europe. Now we want to built on the experience of this year.” He also expressed some regrets that not all of the Central European countries were represented in the competition. “Take the Baltic States, for instance. Maybe we didn’t get the message across soon enough that we also accept feature-length documentaries in the competition.” In this regard, the Austrian entry, Arash T. Riahi’s Die Souvenirs des Herrn X (The Souvenirs of Mr.X), a tongue-in-cheek documentary about the exploits of amateur filmmakers in Vienna, was a popular hit at the festival.

Pecs opened with a special screening of Ondrej Trojan’s Zelary (Czech Republic), an historical drama about the resistance movement during the Second World War in which the popular Hungarian actor György Cserhalmi plays a lead role. Among top awards from other national festivals were Magdalena Piekorz’s Pregi (The Welts) (Poland), Zornitsa Sophia’s Mila ot Mars (Mila from Mars) (Bulgaria), Janez Burger’s Rusevine (The Ruins) (Slovenia), Sinisa Dragin’s Faraonul (The Pharaoh) (Romania), and Robert Adrian Pejo’s Dallas pashamende (Dallas Among Us) (Hungary/Germany/Austria). Popular gypsy stage personality Bogdan Zsolt was awarded Best Actor for his first screen role in Dallas Among Us, in which he plays a teacher returning to a tumbledown gypsy camp for his father’s funeral, only to find he’s unable to leave the place. And the Scriptwriters Union voted a Best Supporting Actor Award to Oszkar Nyari in Robert Adrian Pejo’s Dallas Among Us.

Two films were standouts in the Pecs competition: Arsen Anton Ostojic’s Ta divna Splitska noc (A Wonderful Night in Split) (Croatia), awarded the Audience Prize (the only festival award with a purse attached), and Ahmed Imamovic’s Go West (Bosnia/Croatia), fresh from the competition ranks at the Montreal World Film Festival. Set in Diocletian’s Palace in Split, a mammoth edifice with winding streets, Arsen Anton Ostojic’s A Wonderful Night in Split (Croatia) comes across as a deftly drawn film noir thriller with interlocking stories about lost souls facing crucial decisions in their lives on New Year’s Eve between 10 pm and midnight. As an original piece of filmmaking, this first feature deserved far more than just the Audience Award.

As for Ahmed Imamovic’s Go West, a Bosnian coproduction with Croatia, this first feature impressed as an innovative widescreen transposition of the Italo-Western genre (the film is dedicated to Sergio Leone) to an isolated Serbian mining-camp during the height of the recent Balkan war. The story of a homosexual couple (one a student, the other a cello-player) stuck in the mire of an ethnic-driven war, it opens in Sarajevo at the beginning of the 1990s, then moves to the student’s village in Serb-dominated Hercegovina as the pair look for a way to “go west” to the Netherlands. Knowing the brutality of the Serb paramilitary forces, the musician is disguised as a woman in hopes of escaping detection, while his student friend is drafted into the Serb army. The ploy works – until the local harlot (Mirjana Karanovic) sees through the disguise.

Apparently confronted by a split decision, the International Jury opted for a compromise and awarded the festival’s Golden Benjamin to Marek Majbrt’s Mistri (Champions) (Czech Republic) “for its visually powerful narrative and deeply human perspective in sketching with black humor and traditional Czech sarcasm the lives of lost people in a forlorn corner of Central Europe.” The Student Jury awarded its prize to Katarina Sulajova’s O dve slabiky pozadu (Two Syllables Behind) (Slovakia), a cute comedy about a young miss who falls in and out of love while bouncing between her studies at the university and her job at a voice-dubbing studio. The Dunav Television Award went to Magdalena Piekorz’s Pregi (The Welts) (Poland), the poignant story of a lad who grows into a warped adult due to the welts administered on his backside by an overbearing father.

A festival with many faces, Pecs offered its audiences a variety of choices each evening: a dozen “Successful Films” in the Information Showcase, Cartoons for Children on Jokai Square, Advertising Spots at Murphy’s Pub, Short Films at Café Dante, Concerts in the Festival Tent, a Karoly Makk Life-Work Exhibition, Roundtables on Distribution Policies, and a Schiller Reading in Lenau-Haus by German actress Dorothea Moritz to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Friedrich von Schiller’s death.

See you there next year. Why wait until Pecs become the European Cultural Capital!

AWARDS

Golden Benjamin Prize – Best Film

Mistri (Champions) (Czech Republic), dir Marek Majbrt

Best Actress

Mirjana Karanovic, Go West (Bosnia/Croatia), dir Ahmed Imamovic

Best Actor

Bogdan Zsolt, Dallas Pashamende (Dallas Among Us) (Hungary/Germany/Austria), dir Robert Adrian Pejo

Best Supporting Actor (100.000 HUF awarded by Scriptwriters Union)

Oszkar Nyari, Dallas Pashamende (Dallas Among Us) (Hungary/Germany/Austria), dir Robert Adrian Pejo

Student Jury Award

O dve slabiky pozadu (Two Syllables Behind) (Slovakia), dir Katarina Sulajova

Audience Award

Ta divna Splitska noc (A Wonderful Night in Split) (Croatia), dir Arsen Anton Ostojic

Dunav Television Award

Pregi (The Welts) (Poland), dir. Magdalena Piekorz