András Szirtes’s Film Diary 1979–2004 – Opening Event

The exhibition presents the films, sketches, written notes, and images selected by experimental filmmaker András Szirtes, who has been making films since the late 1960s. For the duration of the exhibition, Szirtes’s films will be screened every evening from 7 p.m. with the active participation of the filmmaker.

Opening remarks by László Beke, art historian.

Szirtes writes: “Some write diaries, others photograph them. In 1979, having directed several experimental films of international acclaim (Suburb, Birds, Dawn) and with about ten years of filmmaking experience, I wondered: what if I started keeping a diary on film tape, by way of ‘my fountain pen is my camera’, or ‘Man with the Movie Camera’?

I left it to my instincts to help the material find its own form. I filmed for 25 years, from 1979 to 2004, first with a movie camera and then a video camera. What I had in mind was a series of 30-minute etudes, totaling 48 interrelated pieces which, together, would constitute a film epic of precisely 24 hours in length.

The exhibition presents my sketches, written notes, and images selected from the nearly 1.5 million frames. The 40 films I have made will also be screened in chronological order. These include Diary Parts 1 to 16, which have gained their final form over the decades.”

The program is in Hungarian.