Hungarian Oscar winners talk about dealing with Europe’s difficult past

Record ID: 112010

  • Title: Hungarian Oscar winners talk about dealing with Europe’s difficult past
  • Date: 2nd March 2016
  • Summary: BUDAPEST, HUNGARY (MARCH 2, 2016) (REUTERS) ***WARNING CONTAINS FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY*** (SOUNDBITE) (Hungarian) ACTOR, GEZA ROHRIG, SAYING: "Talking about making peace…it made me think whether God will ever give me the chance to see the first prime minister of Hungary who was born after the change of the regime sworn into office and whether that prime minister will be able to
  • Embargoed: 17th March 2016 16:24
  • Keywords: Oscars Son of Saul movies films foreign language Academy Awards winners Hungary
  • Location: BUDAPEST, HUNGARY/UNIDENTIFIED FILM LOCATION/LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES
  • City: BUDAPEST, HUNGARY/UNIDENTIFIED FILM LOCATION/LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES
  • Country: Hungary
  • Reuters ID: LVA005478KKE1
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text:EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: THIS ITEM CONTAINS FOOTAGE WHICH WAS ORIGINALLY 4:3
    Makers of the Oscar winning Hungarian film "Son of Saul" on Wednesday (March 2) were welcomed with cheers on their first appearance in Budapest since receiving the award for best foreign language film.
    The harrowing Holocaust drama was Hungarian-French director Laszlo Nemes's first full-length film and had been seen as the Oscar favourite after winning a Golden Globe and taking the second-highest prize at the Cannes Film Festival.
    "The whole (Oscar) night was strange, I think the brain must have released some chemicals because my state of mind was completely altered and it lasted the whole night. There were times when I see photos now but I cannot remember what they were," Nemes recalled the night of the Oscars.
    "I don't remember anything, maybe the boys do….do you remember? Yes? We laughed and…I don't remember."
    Part of the success of the movie was that Nemes shot it on film and not digitally, something he feels very strongly about.
    "I really believe that there is a digital fatigue, and that sure we can fool people by saying that in the end the computer will be built into the retina and so on and people will become robots, but I believe that people need objects and the physical world so we cannot fool everyone, I do believe in the film and I am not alone and I think there is a renaissance of the film now."
    The film's title character is an inmate at the Auschwitz concentration camp who risks his life to attempt a proper Jewish burial for a boy he believes is his son.
    Hungarian-born Nemes, 39, comes from a family that lost relatives in the Holocaust.
    The director has said he felt the immediacy and visceral nature of "Son of Saul" was necessary in an age when many people, especially younger generations, see the Holocaust as something from the distant past.
    Nemes focused the film on Saul with a continuous series of close shots as he carries out his nightmarish job of herding detainees to their deaths and collecting their bodies for the crematorium, all the while trying to find a way to bury the boy.
    Several different languages are spoken in the Hungarian-produced film, reflecting the polyglot nature of the grim world of the World War Two death camps.
    Nemes said earlier that his film was partly a testament to hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews killed during World War Two after Hungarians cooperated with the Nazis in their deportation.
    "A European country must not forget its dead. It doesn't matter whether they were killed in Auschwitz, or at the Don river in the snow, or were taken to the Gulag. The Son of Saul has done a lot, perhaps more than anyone, to bring these dead people back into the national memory," the film's historical consultant, Zoltan Vagi told the news conference and added that a new project will be launched to find and name the 100,000 children who perished in Auschwitz.
    Hungary set a European record by sending 430,000 Jews to Birkenau within eight weeks in 1944, among them more than 100,000 children.
    Actor Geza Rohrig, who plays the main character Saul, said he hoped the award and the film would help the Hungarian society face its past and make peace in the future.
    "Talking about making peace…it made me think whether God will ever give me the chance to see the first prime minister of Hungary who was born after the change of the regime sworn into office and whether that prime minister will be able to rise above the ideological frontlines and be able to govern a country which is more cheerful and more practical than what we see now. I really hope so. The rhetoric of 'we' and 'them' should really stop now," he said.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2016. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register