Budapest school
The Budapest school, or documentarism, was a Hungarian film movement that flourished from roughly 1972 to 1984. The movement originated from Béla Balázs Studios, a small-budget filmmaking community that aimed to unite the young avant-garde and underground filmmakers of Hungary and give them an opportunity to make experimental works without state censorship. The Balázs studio gave birth to two main movements in the early 1970s: an experimental, avant-garde group (led by individuals like Gábor Bódy), and the documentarist group, whose main goal was the portrayal of absolute social-reality on screen. This movement was called "Budapest school" by an Italian film critic on a European film festival. Soon they adopted this name.
The main founders and leaders of the group were István Dárday, Györgyi Szalai, Judit Ember and Pál Schiffer. Many young and sometimes amateur artists were invited to the group by fellow filmmakers, especially Béla Tarr, who made his debut film at the age of 22 with financing from the Béla Balázs Studios.
Films of the movement were generally (but not always) shot with amateur equipment, mostly hand-held cameras, and usually by two or more cameras at the same time. Non-professional actors, who usually socially resembled their characters, were cast. These films also avoided pre-written scripts, with only a basic scenario and certain plot elements pre-written, and the cast members' reactions improvised on the set. Most films were shot in a very short period of time with a very limited budget or no budget at all. Their central themes were mostly the lives of working class and poor people in urban Hungary and their struggle to have a decent existence. The main goal of the movement was to show absolute reality on screen instead of the false escapism shown by commercial and mainstream films.
The Budapest school movement closely resembled cinema verité. The first full-length film made in this manner was Jutalomutazás ("The Prize Trip") (1975) by István Dárday and Györgyi Szalai. The best-known example of the movement is "Családi tűzfészek" ("Family Nest") (1979) by Béla Tarr.
External links
- History of the Balázs Béla Studio
- v
- t
- e
- Action
- Arthouse
- Heroic bloodshed
- Hong Kong action
- Adventure
- Survival
- Art
- Biographical
- Christian
- Comedy
- Cyberpunk
- Documentary
- Drama
- Erotic
- Educational
- Social guidance
- Epic
- Experimental
- Exploitation
- see Exploitation film template
- Fantasy
- Film noir
- Gothic
- Horror
- Maximalist film
- Minimalist film
- Mumblecore
- Musical
- Mystery
- Pop culture fiction
- Pornographic
- Propaganda
- Reality
- Romantic
- Science fiction
- Slice of life
- Slow cinema
- Thriller
- Transgressive
- Trick
- Animals
- Beach party
- Body swap
- Buddy
- Cannibal
- Chicano
- Colonial
- Coming-of-age
- Concert
- Crime
- Dance
- Disaster
- Drug
- Dystopian
- Ecchi
- Economic
- Ethnographic
- Exploitation
- Extraterrestrial
- Food and drink
- Gendai-geki
- Ghost
- Goona-goona epic
- Gothic
- Girls with guns
- Harem
- Hentai
- Homeland
- Isekai
- Jidaigeki
- Kaitō
- LGBT
- Yaoi
- Yuri
- Luchador
- Magical girl
- Martial arts
- Mecha
- Monster
- Mountain
- Mouth of Garbage
- Muslim social
- Nature
- Opera
- Outlaw biker
- Ozploitation
- Partisan film
- Prison
- Race
- Rape and revenge
- Road
- Rubble
- Rumberas
- Sexploitation
- Shoshimin-eiga
- Slavery
- Slice of life
- Snuff
- South Seas
- Sports
- Spy
- Superhero
- Surfing
- Swashbuckler
- Sword-and-sandal
- Sword and sorcery
- Travel
- Trial
- Vigilante
- War
- Western
or period
- Absolute
- American eccentric cinema
- New Objectivity
- Australian New Wave
- Auteur films
- Berlin School
- Bourekas
- Brighton School
- British New Wave
- Budapest school
- Calligrafismo
- Cannibal boom
- Cinéma du look
- Cinema Novo
- Cinema of Transgression
- Cinéma pur
- Commedia all'italiana
- Czechoslovak New Wave
- Documentary Film Movement
- Dogme 95
- Erra Cinema
- European art cinema
- Film d'art
- Film gris
- Free Cinema
- French New Wave
- German Expressionist
- German underground horror
- Nigerian Golden Age
- Grupo Cine Liberación
- Heimatfilm
- Hollywood on the Tiber
- Hong Kong New Wave
- Indiewood
- Iranian New Wave
- Italian futurist
- Italian neorealist
- Japanese New Wave
- Kammerspielfilm
- L.A. Rebellion
- Lettrist
- Modernist film
- Mumblecore
- Neorealist
- New French Extremity
- New German
- New generation
- New Hollywood
- New Nollywood
- New Queer
- No wave
- Nuevo Cine Mexicano
- Pan-Indian film
- Parallel cinema
- Persian Film
- Poetic realist
- Polish Film School
- Poliziotteschi
- Praška filmska škola
- Prussian film
- Pure Film Movement
- Remodernist
- Romanian New Wave
- Slow cinema
- Spaghetti Western
- Socialist realist
- Social realist
- Soviet parallel
- Structural
- Surrealist
- Sword-and-sandal
- Telefoni Bianchi
- Third Cinema
- Toronto New Wave
- Vulgar auteurism
- Yugoslav Black Wave
technique,
approach,
or production
- 3D
- Actuality
- Animation
- Anthology
- Art
- B movie
- Behind-the-scenes
- Black-and-white
- Blockbuster
- Cinéma vérité
- Classical Hollywood cinema
- Collage
- Color
- Compilation
- Composite
- Computer screen
- Cult
- Database cinema
- Docufiction
- Ethnofiction
- Experimental
- Feature
- Featurette
- Film à clef
- Film-poem
- Found footage
- Grindhouse
- Hyperlink cinema
- Independent
- Interstitial art
- Live action
- Low-budget
- Major film studios
- Masala
- Maximalist film
- Message picture
- Meta-film
- Minimalist film
- Mockbuster
- Modernist film
- Musical short
- Mythopoeia
- Neorealist
- No-budget
- One-shot
- Paracinema
- Participatory
- Poetry
- Postmodernist
- Reverse motion
- Satire
- Sceneggiata
- Semidocumentary
- Serial
- Shinpa
- Short
- Silent
- Slow cinema
- Socialist realist
- Sound
- Underground
- Video nasty
- Vulgar auteurism
- Z movie
- Category
- Portal