The Hungarian Institute of Ethnography and Anthropology of UBB Cluj and the Tranzit Foundation present this year’s open seminar of the Film and Anthropology course:
BACKSTAGE
Professional secrets of anthropological and documentary film festivals and institutions

16:00 Discussion about the European Documentary and Anthropological Film Festival Dialëktus
17:00 Zoltán Füredi “Kapitány”: North Country (1998-2001, 52 minutes, in Hungarian)
Discussion about the film (in Hungarian)

Invited: Zoltán “Captain” Füredi, anthropologist, film director and cinematographer, founding director of the European Documentary and Anthropological Film Festival Dialëktus, president of the Palantír Film Visual Anthropology Foundation
Moderator: Zoltán Huszár, student at cultural studies

Seminar coordinated by Csilla Könczei and Réka Csiki

Free event, registration required.
Registration: https://forms.gle/sHd59LKNQ6n8D7QHA

Organised six times between 2002 and 2010, the festival aims to present some of the most interesting and sensitive European documentaries. The films selected for competition were primarily those that had a cultural anthropological perspective, i.e. were based on serious fieldwork, reflected the values of the characters in the film and witnessed the director’s personal involvement.

The screenings, discussions with invited directors, producers, actors and other film experts made the festival a real event. The 4-5 day event included an international field, a Hungarian ethnographic film competition, a retrospective programme and workshops.
Dialëktus was also the starting point for the Foundation’s film collection and subsequent film distribution projects.

http://dialektusfesztival.hu/; https://www.facebook.com/Dialëktus-Európai-Dokumentum-és-Antropológiai-Filmfesztivál-128021460550196

Since the 1990s, Zoltán Füredi has been one of the main initiators of the promotion of anthropological film in Hungary, the introduction of anthropological film in Hungary and the use of anthropological films in education and social education. Together with his wife Orsolya Komlósi, he is the initiator of numerous film festivals, film events, conferences, distribution and film development projects, the initiator of the DocuArt film collection and the Strangers in my Garden film collection, and the founder of the first Hungarian documentary cinema, DocuArt. He has been a board member of the documentary section of the Hungarian Film Artists Association between 2005-2008, and a member of the Documentary Filmmakers Club since 2009. He has been the vice president of the Hungarian Society of Cultural Anthropology between 2012-2016 and member of the board of directors since 2017, member of the board of directors of the Hungarian Cave and Cave Research Association since 2016.

North Country (1998-2001, 52 minutes, in Hungarian)

DIRECTOR: Zoltán Füredi "The Captain"
PRODUCER: Zoltán Füredi "The Captain"
DRAMATURG: Ernő Nagy
DIRECTOR: Zoltán Füredi "The Captain"
DIRECTOR: Judit Kollányi
SOUND ENGINEER: Vince Kapcsos
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR: Gergely Bérczessy
COLLECTION DIRECTOR: Miklós Szederkényi
DIRECTOR: Mária Paulik

In the North Country, we are witnessing a reapprochement between the filmmaker and the community, but without losing sight of the film’s subjects. We see not only the foresters, the cavers and the charcoal burners, but also how the filmmakers interact with them. Even if the director is never seen in the film, we feel his presence. The film reveals moments where the director and the filmed meet. The film was shot in 1998 in the Bükk Mountains and Répáshút village in Hungary. Although the North Country itself is a mythical landscape, the village of Répáshuta and the Slovak forest workers who live there exist within it: the film presents four aging men, four different characters, four traditional forest crafts, four seasons.