Private Hungary Series, El Perro Negro, Miss Universe 1929, Wittgenstein Tractatus, The Maelstrom, The Danube Exodus
Péter Forgács (born 1950) is a Hungarian media artist and independent filmmaker. He is best known for his "Private Hungary" series of award winning films based on home movies from the 1930s and 1960s, which document ordinary lives that were soon to be ruptured by an extraordinary historical trauma that occurs off screen.
Biography
Since 1976 Péter Forgács has been active in the Hungarian art scene as media artist/filmmaker. In the late 1970s and '80s he collaborated with the contemporary music ensemble Group 180[1], at the same time he started to work in the Béla Balázs Filmstudio.[1] Forgács established the Private Photo & Film Archives Foundation (PPFA, 1983) in Budapest, a unique collection of amateur film footage from the '920, and has made this material "the raw data" for his unique postmodern re-orchestrations of history.
In 2002 The Getty Research Institute held an exhibit The Danube Exodus: Rippling Currents of the River. His international debut came with the Bartos Family (1988)[2], which was awarded the Grand Prix at the World Wide Video Festival in The Hague (1990). Since then Forgács has received several international festival awards in Budapest, Lisbon, Marseilles, San Francisco International Film Festival the Documentary Golden Gate Award 1998, Tribeca Film Festival 2005; At the Prix Europa, Berlin [3] received the European TV Documentary of the Year Award 1997. Forgács received the 2007 Erasmus Prize, which is "awarded to a person or institution which has made an exceptionally important contribution to culture in Europe."[2] In 2009 Forgács represented Hungary at the Venice Biennale, exhibiting the Col Tempo - The W. Project installation. In 2013 Forgacs created the ″Letters to Afar″ video installation at Museum of the History of Polish Jews[3] in Warsaw with The Klezmatics Group; and at EYE Netherlands Filmmuseum Amsterdam the ″Looming Fire - Stories from The Dutch East Indies 1900-1940″ installation.[4]
Filmography
Filmography
2011 - GermanUnity@Balaton - Honeyland - produced by Lumen Film Amsterdam / Uj Budapest Film / for zdf/arte - HDCAM video 79 min.
2009 - Video Active - documentary - for Video Active EU TV online archive promo - web version 10 min.
2009 - Hunky Blues - The American Dream - produced by Filmpartners Ltd. - HD CAM 100 min.
2008 - I am Von Höfler - Private Hungary 15 (video 160min)
2007 - Own Death - fiction film - novel by Péter Nádas (video - 118min)
2006 - Miss Universe 1929 - Lisl Goldarbeiter - a Queen in Wien (video - 70min) [4]
2005 - El Perro Negro - Stories from the Spanish Civil War (video - 84min and 52min)
2004 - Do You Really Love Me? (video - 33 min)
2004 - Mutual Analysis (video - 12min)
2003 - Der Kaiser auf dem Spaziergang - light & image project (DVD - 15'30min)
2013 - Forgacs created the ″Letters to Afar″ video installation at Museum of the History of Polish Jews,[3] Warsaw with The Klezmatics Group;
2013 - ″Looming Fire - Stories from The Dutch East Indies 1900-1940″ installation.[4] at EYE Netherlands Filmmuseum Amsterdam the
German Unity @ Balaton - Deutsche Einheit am Balaton – Die private Geschichte der deutsch-deutschen Einheit [8]• media installation with Gusztav Hamos • Collegium Hungaricum Berlin • 2009 • Dortmund • 2010 • Vaszary Villa - Balatonfüred/Hungary • 2010 [9]
Col Tempo - The W. Project • installation • 53rd Venice Biennale • Hungarian Pavilion • curator András Rényi • [10] • 2009 •
Black Hole • Performance, with Tamás Tóth bass guitar • 1984
Case of My Room, The • video installation • 1994
Chlorophyll • performance with L. Lugo Lugosi • 1986
Zentrum für Medien Kunst, ZKM collection, Karlsruhe
Secondary literature
*Cinema’s Alchemist. The Films of Péter Forgács, ed. by Bill Nichols and Michael Renov, Minneapolis, Minn.[etc.] : University of Minnesota Press, 2011[6]
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