Picturesque Epochs

Péter Forgács / Hungary / 2016 / International Premiere / 133 min.

synopsis

The main focus of the new series A Private Hungary consists of 8mm footage from the private archives of the painter Mária Gánóczy (1927), whose rhythm is accentuated by the director’s syntactic additions. Gánóczy’s melancholic narration contrasts with the ideological rhetoric of the era’s news weeklies and police reports. The portraits of her family and friends and contemporary images from her canvas-filled studio, accompanied by the poetry of Dezső Tandori, are condensed into a sense of open possibilities for how to depict the past. At the same time, the fragile and unique nature of human experience appear especially vulnerable when we touch on eternity.

"A time travel through 200 years of Hungarian art & history through the eye and lenses of painters. This weaved art-and-film grand patchwork streams like the currents of the river of times, ripples and floats." P. Forgács

biography

Experimental filmmaker and media artist Péter Forgács (1950) has created dozens of film essays, musical-visual performances and exhibitions. He frequently collaborates with minimalist musicians. He describes his work with found footage as a form of visual psychoanalysis: his aim is to show the boundaries of the image and to provide us with a look into the unconscious of individuals and eras. The Ji.hlava IDFF has shown several of his films in the past.