Our students' successes on this year's Filmtettfeszt
09/10/2017 12:00 PM

The 17th edition of the local, Cluj-based film festival concentrating on Hungarian-speaking features and shorts saw the third installment of its competition called Filmgalopp. The „film gallop” had seven documentaries running (five of which were directed by our current students or alumni) for the 1 million forint prize offered by Hungary's National Media and Infocommunications Authority.

The jury – consisting of filmmakers Ibolya Fekete, György Szomjas and TV journalist Zoltán Boros – split this year's prize between Gyopár Búzási's Babuka in the Grass and Botond Püsök's Angela. Búzási's animated documentary features finely wowen humor around a heart-warming family history, while Püsök's portrayal of a rural Gypsy girl presents consistenst sociographical sensibility.

This wasn't the only prize connected to our department on this year's Filmtettfeszt: the organizers gave their Sárga Csikó Prize (Yellow Foal, named after the first feature film produced in Transylvania) to our department head and teacher, dr. Ágnes Pethő. The prize was first established in 2012, and they give it out to personalities who helped shape Hungarian-language filmmaking in Transylvania. Dr. Ágnes Pethő received this award for her outstanding work as a department founder and leader. This was the first time – as dr. Hajnal Király pointed out in her speech – that a film theorist and a woman received this prize.