István Szabó
Encyclopedia
István Szabó is a Hungarian film director
, screenwriter
, and opera director.
Szabó is the most internationally famous Hungarian filmmaker since the late 1960s. Working in the tradition of European, auteurist
art cinema, he has made films that represent many of the psychological and political conflicts of his own and Central Europe’s
history. He achieved international success with Mephisto
(1981), which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
. Since then, most of Szabó's films have been international co-productions
filmed in a variety of languages and European locations. He has continued to make some films in Hungarian, however, and even in his international co-productions, he often films in Hungary and uses Hungarian talent.
, before the family moved back to Budapest. Szabó came from a family of Jews who had converted to Catholicism, but, considered Jews by the Arrow Cross Party
(Hungarian Nazis), they were forced to separate and hide in Budapest sometime between October 1944, when Nazi Germany occupied Hungary and installed the Arrow Cross in power, and February 1945, when the Soviets defeated the German Army in Budapest. Szabó survived by hiding at an orphanage, but his father died of diphtheria shortly after the German defeat. Memories of these events would later appear in several of his films.
In 2006, the Hungarian newspaper Life and Literature
revealed that Szabó had been an informant of the Communist regime’s
secret police. Between 1957 and 1961, he submitted forty-eight reports on seventy-two people, mostly classmates and teachers at the Academy of Theatrical and Cinematic Arts. According to historian Istvan Deak
, only in one case did Szabó's informing cause significant damage, when an individual was denied a passport. After the article was published, over one-hundred prominent intellectuals, including some of the people Szabó had denounced, published a letter of support for him. Szabó’s initial response to the article was that informing had been an act of bravery intended to save the life of former classmate Pál Gábor
. When this claim turned out not to be true, Szabó admitted that his true motive had been to prevent his own expulsion from the Academy.
to become a film director. Upon graduation from high school, he became one of 11 applicants out of 800 who were admitted to the Academy of Theatrical and Cinematic Arts. At the Academy, he studied with the famous director Félix Máriássy, who became something of a father figure to Szabó. Among his classmates were Judit Elek
, Zsolt Kézdi-Kovács, Janos Rozsa, Pál Gábor
, Imre Gyöngyössy
, Ferenc Kardos, and Zoltan Huszárik
. While at the Academy, Szabó directed several short films, culminating in his thesis film, Koncert (1961), which won a prize at the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen
. Thanks to János Herskó
, head of the Hunnia Studio at which he apprenticed, Szabó was given his first opportunity to direct a feature film at the age of 25, rather than being required to spend ten years working as an assistant director.
The beginning of Szabó’s career coincided with the beginning of a “new wave” in Hungarian cinema, one of several new wave cinemas that occurred around this time throughout Western and Eastern Europe. The Eastern European new waves were caused by political liberalization, the decentralization of film industries, and the emergence of films as valuable commodities for export to Western European markets. The resulting films were more artistically experimental, politically anti-establishment, and, especially in the case of Szabó, psychologically probing than the films of the previous generation. Hungarian filmmakers in particular experienced a significant increase in freedom of expression due to the reforms of the Kádár government
.
The 400 Blows
in the background of a scene suggested Szabó’s artistic compatibility with Truffaut and the French New Wave
. The film won the Silver Sail for Best First Work at the Locarno International Film Festival
and a Special Jury Prize for Best Director at the Hungarian Film Festival.
Father (1966) is a coming of age story that displays Szabó’s increasing fascination with history and memory. The main character copes with the childhood loss of his father against the backdrop of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and memories of the Arrow Cross dictatorship. The film won the Grand Prix at the Moscow Film Festival and the Special Jury Prize at Locarno, and established Szabó as a director of international stature. In 2000, Father appeared as number 11 on a list of the 12 best Hungarian films according to a group of Hungarian film critics.
Lovefilm
(1970) focuses on a young man’s relationship with his childhood sweetheart, told through flashbacks that include the Arrow Cross dictatorship and 1956, and rendered in an experimental, fragmented form. This experimental tendency in Szabó’s films reached its apotheosis in 25 Fireman Street (1973), which began as a short film, Dream About a House (1971). 25 Fireman Street takes place during the course of a long, hot night in Budapest, during which the residents of a single apartment building are plagued by dream-memories of pain and loss spanning thirty years, including both World Wars, the Arrow Cross dictatorship, the Communist takeover, and 1956. While the film won the top prize at Locarno, Szabó was upset by its lack of success at the box office and at film festivals. Attributing this lack of success to the film's complex structure, he decided to give his next film a simpler structure.
In Budapest Tales
(1976), Szabó traded his earlier, complex narrative structures, characterized by flashbacks and dreams, for a more linear one. At the same time, he traded the literal representation of history for an allegorical one. The film follows a disparate group of people who come together on the outskirts of an unnamed city at the end of an unnamed war to repair a damaged tram and ride it into the city. Allegorically, the film was interpreted by critics variously as representing Hungarian history specifically or universal human responses to war and reconstruction more generally.
Szabó's first four full-length films featured the actor András Bálint in roles based on Szabó himself. While Bálint also appeared in Budapest Tales, this was Szabó's first feature film that did not contain a significant amount of autobiographical material. He did not make another autobiographical film until Meeting Venus
, eighteen years later.
Budapest Tales was even less successful than 25 Fireman Street at the box office and festivals. According to author David Paul, this may explain why Szabó shifted gears even more dramatically in his next film, Confidence (1980), in which historical events are represented straightforwardly, and are filtered through neither memory nor allegory. The film focuses on the relationship between a man and woman who are forced to share a room as they hide from the Arrow Cross toward the end of the Second World War. It garnered a Best Director award for Szabó at the Berlin Film Festival.
. The informal trilogy – Mephisto (1981), Colonel Redl (1985) and Hanussen (1988) – features Brandauer in a series of roles based on historical figures who, as represented in the films, compromised their morals in order to climb the ladder of success within a context of authoritarian political power. In Mephisto
, based on a novel by Klaus Mann
, Brandauer plays an actor and theater director in Nazi Germany, a role based on Mann’s former brother-in-law Gustaf Gründgens
. The film won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and the award for Best Screenplay at the Cannes Film Festival
, and greatly increased Szabó’s international prestige.
In Colonel Redl, Brandauer plays Alfred Redl
, counter-intelligence chief of the Austro-Hungarian Empire who was blackmailed into espionage for the Russians in order to prevent the revelation of his homosexuality. The film won top awards in Germany and the UK, but provoked a scandal in Austria, where several periodicals accused the film of bringing the country into disrepute. In Hanussen, Brandauer plays Erik Jan Hanussen
, a clairvoyant performer whose growing fame brings him into increasingly close – and dangerous – contact with the Nazis.
(1991), the first in a series of English-language films directed by Szabó – and his first comedy – is based on his experience directing Tannhäuser
at the Paris Opera
in 1984. Niels Arestrup
plays a Hungarian directing the opera at an imaginary pan-European opera company, and encountering a multitude of pitfalls that symbolize the challenges of a united Europe.
With Sweet Emma, Dear Böbe
(1992), Szabó returned to a strictly Hungarian subject – this time, however, focused on a contemporary, rather than historical, social problem. The film follows two young, female Russian teachers facing the obsolescence of their specialty after the fall of the socialist government, as well as a variety of types of sexual harassment in the new Hungary. The film won the top prize at the Berlin Film Festival.
Sunshine
(1999) – a three-hour historical epic, and an English-language, international co-production – was viewed by many critics as Szabó’s most ambitious film, and, along with Mephisto, his most important. Hungary’s Jews had figured in either a marginal or coded fashion in several of Szabó’s earlier films, produced during the socialist period when discourse around the history of the country’s Jews was more highly circumscribed. In Sunshine, for the first time, Szabó focused explicitly on this aspect of Hungarian history, which he himself had experienced as a child during the Arrow Cross dictatorship. Ralph Fiennes
plays three generations in the Sonnenschein family as they experience the trials of twentieth-century Hungarian Jewish history, from the late Austro-Hungarian Empire through the Holocaust to the 1956 Revolution. Several characters are based on real people, including the Zwack family
, with their successful liquor business, the Olympic fencer Attila Petschauer
, and the Jewish police official Ernö Szücs. The film won European Film Awards for Best Screenwriter, Best Actor, and Best Cinematographer. It received a rating of 74% Fresh from review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes
. An example of an extremely positive review was that of Roger Ebert
of the Chicago Sun-Times, who called it “a movie of substance and thrilling historical sweep.” A. O. Scott of the New York Times had a more mixed reaction, writing that, by the end, "the movie has accumulated sufficient power and momentum to erase the memory of its earlier awkwardness. It shows such sympathy for its characters, and approaches its subject with such intelligence, that it's easy to forgive the clumsy editing, the haphazard insertion of black-and-white newsreels, and the hyperventilating sexual ardor that seems to be a Sors family curse."
In Taking Sides
(2001), Szabó returned to thematic territory he had explored in Mephisto. Stellan Skarsgård
plays real life German conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler
, and Harvey Keitel
a U.S. Army investigator interrogating Furtwängler about his collaboration with the Nazis. The film won several awards at the Mar del Plata Film Festival
in Argentina, including Best Director.
Being Julia
(2004), based on a novel by W. Somerset Maugham
, stars Annette Bening
as a famous British actress experiencing a series of romantic and professional rivalries. Bening won a Golden Globe Award
for her performance.
Rokonok (2006) was a Hungarian production based on a 1932 novel by Zsigmond Móricz
about political corruption. Sándor Csányi
plays a newly elected attorney general whose relatives (rokonok) come out of the woodwork looking for favors.
Szabó’s current project is The Door, an English language production based on a Hungarian novel
by Magda Szabó
(no relation).
Szabó’s frequent collaborators have included actors András Bálint
, Klaus Maria Brandauer
, Péter Andorai
, and Ildikó Bánsági; cinematographer Lajos Koltai
; and screenwriters Péter Dobai and Andrea Vészits.
issues, but political/historical events form the backdrop of these issues and continually rupture the attempts of the characters to lead their private lives. In an interview in 2008, Szabó said, “My mother once told me, ‘We had a nice childhood and our youth was beautiful, but our life was destroyed by politics and history.’” The political/historical events most commonly depicted are the dominant traumatic events of mid-20th century Hungarian and Central European history – Nazism, the Second World War, and, in Hungary – or, more accurately, Budapest – the Arrow Cross dictatorship and the Holocaust, the Communist takeover, and the 1956 Revolution. Szabó himself has frequently referred to this theme as the search for security.
A related theme is the moral compromises individuals make in order to succeed in immoral political systems. In an interview about Taking Sides, Szabó said, “I don't think that life is possible without making compromises. The question is only one of limits: how far to go. When one crosses the line, then the compromise starts to be a bad, even deadly, one.” This theme is dominant in the Brandauer trilogy and, as Istvan Deak points out, may be related to Szabó’s own collaboration with the Communist secret police.
Another closely related theme is the arts – most often theater, but also music and film itself. In several of Szabó’s films – most famously in Mephisto – artists become caught up in conflicts around politics, role-playing, and identity.
in their experimentation with flashbacks, dream sequences, and unconventional narrative structures built on these techniques.
Szabó emphasizes iconography in his films, insofar as he tends to invest certain objects and places with symbolic meaning. Tram cars play this role in many of his films, and one becomes the central image in Budapest Tales. Budapest itself plays an important role in many of his films, including scenes of the Danube and of buildings Szabó lived in when he was a child.
Acting also plays a key role in Szabó’s films, as he values psychological complexity in his central characters. In his first several features, he tended to use the same lead actors over and over – first András Bálint, then Klaus Maria Brandauer. Consistent with this focus on acting, he frequently employs long close-up
shots to emphasize the play of emotions on the faces of his characters.
, short films, and documentaries, as well as serving as assistant director
, screenwriter, producer
, and actor in films directed by others.
Szabó has also directed several operas, including Tannhäuser
in Paris, Boris Godunov
in Leipzig, Il Trovatore
in Vienna, and Three Sisters in Budapest. He has taught at film schools in Budapest, London, Berlin, and Vienna. In 1989, he was one of the founding members of the European Film Academy
, and in 1992, of the Széchenyi Academy of Literature and Arts
.
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
, screenwriter
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...
, and opera director.
Szabó is the most internationally famous Hungarian filmmaker since the late 1960s. Working in the tradition of European, auteurist
Auteur theory
In film criticism, auteur theory holds that a director's film reflects the director's personal creative vision, as if they were the primary "auteur"...
art cinema, he has made films that represent many of the psychological and political conflicts of his own and Central Europe’s
Central Europe
Central Europe or alternatively Middle Europe is a region of the European continent lying between the variously defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe...
history. He achieved international success with Mephisto
Mephisto (1981 film)
Mephisto is the title of a 1981 film adaptation of Klaus Mann's novel of the same name, directed by István Szabó, and starring Klaus Maria Brandauer as Hendrik Höfgen...
(1981), which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
The Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film is one of the Academy Awards of Merit, popularly known as the Oscars, handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...
. Since then, most of Szabó's films have been international co-productions
International co-production
An international co-production is a production where two or more different production companies are working together, for example in a film production...
filmed in a variety of languages and European locations. He has continued to make some films in Hungarian, however, and even in his international co-productions, he often films in Hungary and uses Hungarian talent.
Life
Szabó is the son of Mária (née Vita) and István Szabó, who was a doctor from a long line of doctors. He was born in Budapest, but spent his first six years in TatabányaTatabánya
Tatabánya is a city of 69,988 inhabitants in north-western Hungary, in the Central Transdanubian region. It is the capital of Komárom-Esztergom County.- Location :...
, before the family moved back to Budapest. Szabó came from a family of Jews who had converted to Catholicism, but, considered Jews by the Arrow Cross Party
Arrow Cross Party
The Arrow Cross Party was a national socialist party led by Ferenc Szálasi, which led in Hungary a government known as the Government of National Unity from October 15, 1944 to 28 March 1945...
(Hungarian Nazis), they were forced to separate and hide in Budapest sometime between October 1944, when Nazi Germany occupied Hungary and installed the Arrow Cross in power, and February 1945, when the Soviets defeated the German Army in Budapest. Szabó survived by hiding at an orphanage, but his father died of diphtheria shortly after the German defeat. Memories of these events would later appear in several of his films.
In 2006, the Hungarian newspaper Life and Literature
Élet és Irodalom
Élet és Irodalom is a weekly Hungarian newspaper about literature and politics. It is considered a postmodernist and politically liberal periodical, politically close to the left-wing parties MSZP and SZDSZ....
revealed that Szabó had been an informant of the Communist regime’s
People's Republic of Hungary
The People's Republic of Hungary or Hungarian People's Republic was the official state name of Hungary from 1949 to 1989 during its Communist period under the guidance of the Soviet Union. The state remained in existence until 1989 when opposition forces consolidated in forcing the regime to...
secret police. Between 1957 and 1961, he submitted forty-eight reports on seventy-two people, mostly classmates and teachers at the Academy of Theatrical and Cinematic Arts. According to historian Istvan Deak
István Deák
István Deák is a Hungarian-born American historian, author and academic.Deak was born at Székesfehérvár, Hungary. He was educated at a Catholic gymnasium in Budapest and began his university studies in 1945 at the University of Budapest...
, only in one case did Szabó's informing cause significant damage, when an individual was denied a passport. After the article was published, over one-hundred prominent intellectuals, including some of the people Szabó had denounced, published a letter of support for him. Szabó’s initial response to the article was that informing had been an act of bravery intended to save the life of former classmate Pál Gábor
Pál Gábor
Pál Gábor was a Hungarian film director and screenwriter. He directed 20 films between 1962 and 1987. In 1979, he was a member of the jury at the 29th Berlin International Film Festival.-Selected filmography:...
. When this claim turned out not to be true, Szabó admitted that his true motive had been to prevent his own expulsion from the Academy.
Pre–1964
As a child, Szabó wanted to be a doctor like his father. By the age of 16, however, he had been inspired by a book by Hungarian film theorist Béla BalázsBéla Balázs
----Béla Balázs , born Herbert Bauer, was a Hungarian-Jewish film critic, aesthete, writer and poet....
to become a film director. Upon graduation from high school, he became one of 11 applicants out of 800 who were admitted to the Academy of Theatrical and Cinematic Arts. At the Academy, he studied with the famous director Félix Máriássy, who became something of a father figure to Szabó. Among his classmates were Judit Elek
Judit Elek
Judit Elek is a Hungarian film director and screenwriter. She has directed 16 films between 1962 and 2006. Her film Mária-nap was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival.-Filmography:...
, Zsolt Kézdi-Kovács, Janos Rozsa, Pál Gábor
Pál Gábor
Pál Gábor was a Hungarian film director and screenwriter. He directed 20 films between 1962 and 1987. In 1979, he was a member of the jury at the 29th Berlin International Film Festival.-Selected filmography:...
, Imre Gyöngyössy
Imre Gyöngyössy
Imre Gyöngyössy was a Hungarian film director and screenwriter. His film Job's Revolt , which he co-directed with Barna Kabay, was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.-External links:...
, Ferenc Kardos, and Zoltan Huszárik
Zoltán Huszárik
Zoltán Huszárik was an influential Hungarian film director, screenwriter, visual artist and occasional actor, an acclaimed auteur of the European modern art film....
. While at the Academy, Szabó directed several short films, culminating in his thesis film, Koncert (1961), which won a prize at the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen
International Short Film Festival Oberhausen
The International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, founded in 1954, is one of the oldest short film festivals in the world and one of the major international platforms for the short form...
. Thanks to János Herskó
János Herskó
János Herskó was a Hungarian film director and actor. He appeared in 15 films between 1963 and 2006. He also directed nine films between 1948 and 1990.-External links:...
, head of the Hunnia Studio at which he apprenticed, Szabó was given his first opportunity to direct a feature film at the age of 25, rather than being required to spend ten years working as an assistant director.
The beginning of Szabó’s career coincided with the beginning of a “new wave” in Hungarian cinema, one of several new wave cinemas that occurred around this time throughout Western and Eastern Europe. The Eastern European new waves were caused by political liberalization, the decentralization of film industries, and the emergence of films as valuable commodities for export to Western European markets. The resulting films were more artistically experimental, politically anti-establishment, and, especially in the case of Szabó, psychologically probing than the films of the previous generation. Hungarian filmmakers in particular experienced a significant increase in freedom of expression due to the reforms of the Kádár government
Goulash Communism
Goulash Communism or Kádárism refers to the variety of communism as practised in the Hungarian People's Republic from the 1960s until the collapse of Communism in Hungary in 1989...
.
Hungarian films, 1964–1980
Szabó’s first feature film, The Age of Illusions (1964), is an at least partly autobiographical film about the struggles of Szabó’s generation in starting a career, encountering the obsolescence of the older generation, and establishing romantic relationships. The appearance of a poster for Francois Truffaut’sFrançois Truffaut
François Roland Truffaut was an influential film critic and filmmaker and one of the founders of the French New Wave. In a film career lasting over a quarter of a century, he remains an icon of the French film industry. He was also a screenwriter, producer, and actor working on over twenty-five...
The 400 Blows
The 400 Blows
The 400 Blows is a 1959 French film directed by François Truffaut. One of the defining films of the French New Wave, it displays many of the characteristic traits of the movement. The story revolves around Antoine Doinel, an ordinary adolescent in Paris, who is thought by his parents and teachers...
in the background of a scene suggested Szabó’s artistic compatibility with Truffaut and the French New Wave
French New Wave
The New Wave was a blanket term coined by critics for a group of French filmmakers of the late 1950s and 1960s, influenced by Italian Neorealism and classical Hollywood cinema. Although never a formally organized movement, the New Wave filmmakers were linked by their self-conscious rejection of...
. The film won the Silver Sail for Best First Work at the Locarno International Film Festival
Locarno International Film Festival
The Film Festival Locarno is an international film festival held annually in the city of Locarno, Switzerland since 1946. After Cannes and Venice and together with Karlovy Vary, Locarno is the Film Festival with the longest history...
and a Special Jury Prize for Best Director at the Hungarian Film Festival.
Father (1966) is a coming of age story that displays Szabó’s increasing fascination with history and memory. The main character copes with the childhood loss of his father against the backdrop of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and memories of the Arrow Cross dictatorship. The film won the Grand Prix at the Moscow Film Festival and the Special Jury Prize at Locarno, and established Szabó as a director of international stature. In 2000, Father appeared as number 11 on a list of the 12 best Hungarian films according to a group of Hungarian film critics.
Lovefilm
Lovefilm (film)
Lovefilm is a 1970 Hungarian drama film written and directed by István Szabó. The film was selected as the Hungarian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 43rd Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee....
(1970) focuses on a young man’s relationship with his childhood sweetheart, told through flashbacks that include the Arrow Cross dictatorship and 1956, and rendered in an experimental, fragmented form. This experimental tendency in Szabó’s films reached its apotheosis in 25 Fireman Street (1973), which began as a short film, Dream About a House (1971). 25 Fireman Street takes place during the course of a long, hot night in Budapest, during which the residents of a single apartment building are plagued by dream-memories of pain and loss spanning thirty years, including both World Wars, the Arrow Cross dictatorship, the Communist takeover, and 1956. While the film won the top prize at Locarno, Szabó was upset by its lack of success at the box office and at film festivals. Attributing this lack of success to the film's complex structure, he decided to give his next film a simpler structure.
In Budapest Tales
Budapest Tales
Budapest Tales is a 1976 Hungarian drama film directed by István Szabó. It was entered into the 1977 Cannes Film Festival.-Cast:* Ági Mészáros as Fényes' Mother* Maja Komorowska as Girl Who Knows the Colors* Franciszek Pieczka* András Bálint as Fényes...
(1976), Szabó traded his earlier, complex narrative structures, characterized by flashbacks and dreams, for a more linear one. At the same time, he traded the literal representation of history for an allegorical one. The film follows a disparate group of people who come together on the outskirts of an unnamed city at the end of an unnamed war to repair a damaged tram and ride it into the city. Allegorically, the film was interpreted by critics variously as representing Hungarian history specifically or universal human responses to war and reconstruction more generally.
Szabó's first four full-length films featured the actor András Bálint in roles based on Szabó himself. While Bálint also appeared in Budapest Tales, this was Szabó's first feature film that did not contain a significant amount of autobiographical material. He did not make another autobiographical film until Meeting Venus
Meeting Venus
Meeting Venus is a 1991 British–American-Japanese film directed by the Hungarian director István Szabó and starring Glenn Close, Niels Arestrup, Marián Labuda, Victor Poletti, Jay O. Sanders, Maria de Medeiros and Johanna ter Steege...
, eighteen years later.
Budapest Tales was even less successful than 25 Fireman Street at the box office and festivals. According to author David Paul, this may explain why Szabó shifted gears even more dramatically in his next film, Confidence (1980), in which historical events are represented straightforwardly, and are filtered through neither memory nor allegory. The film focuses on the relationship between a man and woman who are forced to share a room as they hide from the Arrow Cross toward the end of the Second World War. It garnered a Best Director award for Szabó at the Berlin Film Festival.
International co-productions featuring Brandauer, 1981–1988
Szabó’s next three films constituted a new phase in Szabó’s career – moving away from Hungarian productions, in Hungarian, written by Szabó alone, and featuring Bálint, and moving toward international co-productions, in German, written by Szabó in collaboration with others, and featuring Austrian actor Klaus Maria BrandauerKlaus Maria Brandauer
Klaus Maria Brandauer is an Austrian actor, film director, and professor at the Max Reinhardt Seminar in Vienna.-Personal life:...
. The informal trilogy – Mephisto (1981), Colonel Redl (1985) and Hanussen (1988) – features Brandauer in a series of roles based on historical figures who, as represented in the films, compromised their morals in order to climb the ladder of success within a context of authoritarian political power. In Mephisto
Mephisto (1981 film)
Mephisto is the title of a 1981 film adaptation of Klaus Mann's novel of the same name, directed by István Szabó, and starring Klaus Maria Brandauer as Hendrik Höfgen...
, based on a novel by Klaus Mann
Klaus Mann
- Life and work :Born in Munich, Klaus Mann was the son of German writer Thomas Mann and his wife, Katia Pringsheim. His father was baptized as a Lutheran, while his mother was from a family of secular Jews. He began writing short stories in 1924 and the following year became drama critic for a...
, Brandauer plays an actor and theater director in Nazi Germany, a role based on Mann’s former brother-in-law Gustaf Gründgens
Gustaf Gründgens
Gustaf Gründgens , born Gustav Heinrich Arnold Gründgens, was one of Germany's most famous and influential actors of the 20th century, intendant and artistic director of theatres in Berlin, Düsseldorf, and Hamburg...
. The film won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and the award for Best Screenplay at the Cannes Film Festival
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
, and greatly increased Szabó’s international prestige.
In Colonel Redl, Brandauer plays Alfred Redl
Alfred Redl
Alfred Redl was an Austrian officer who rose to head the counter-intelligence efforts of Austria-Hungary. He was one of the leading figures of pre-World War I espionage. His term in office was marked by innovation, and he used very high technology for the time to ensnare foreign intelligence...
, counter-intelligence chief of the Austro-Hungarian Empire who was blackmailed into espionage for the Russians in order to prevent the revelation of his homosexuality. The film won top awards in Germany and the UK, but provoked a scandal in Austria, where several periodicals accused the film of bringing the country into disrepute. In Hanussen, Brandauer plays Erik Jan Hanussen
Erik Jan Hanussen
Erik Jan Hanussen, born Hermann Steinschneider , was an Austrian Jewish publicist and clairvoyant performer who lied about his origins. Acclaimed in his lifetime as a hypnotist, mentalist, occultist, and astrologer, Hanussen was active in Weimar Republic Germany and also at the beginning of Nazi...
, a clairvoyant performer whose growing fame brings him into increasingly close – and dangerous – contact with the Nazis.
1991–present
Meeting VenusMeeting Venus
Meeting Venus is a 1991 British–American-Japanese film directed by the Hungarian director István Szabó and starring Glenn Close, Niels Arestrup, Marián Labuda, Victor Poletti, Jay O. Sanders, Maria de Medeiros and Johanna ter Steege...
(1991), the first in a series of English-language films directed by Szabó – and his first comedy – is based on his experience directing Tannhäuser
Tannhäuser
Tannhäuser was a German Minnesänger and poet. Historically, his biography is obscure beyond the poetry, which dates between 1245 and 1265...
at the Paris Opera
Paris Opera
The Paris Opera is the primary opera company of Paris, France. It was founded in 1669 by Louis XIV as the Académie d'Opéra and shortly thereafter was placed under the leadership of Jean-Baptiste Lully and renamed the Académie Royale de Musique...
in 1984. Niels Arestrup
Niels Arestrup
Niels Arestrup is a French actor.Born in Paris into a family of modest means, his father was Danish and his mother was French...
plays a Hungarian directing the opera at an imaginary pan-European opera company, and encountering a multitude of pitfalls that symbolize the challenges of a united Europe.
With Sweet Emma, Dear Böbe
Sweet Emma, Dear Böbe
Sweet Emma, Dear Böbe is a 1992 Hungarian drama film directed by István Szabó. It was entered into the 42nd Berlin International Film Festival where it won the Silver Bear - Special Jury Prize.-Cast:* Johanna ter Steege as Emma* Enikö Börcsök as Böbe...
(1992), Szabó returned to a strictly Hungarian subject – this time, however, focused on a contemporary, rather than historical, social problem. The film follows two young, female Russian teachers facing the obsolescence of their specialty after the fall of the socialist government, as well as a variety of types of sexual harassment in the new Hungary. The film won the top prize at the Berlin Film Festival.
Sunshine
Sunshine (1999 film)
Sunshine is a 1999 historical film written by Israel Horovitz and István Szabó, directed and produced by István Szabó. It follows three generations of a Jewish family during the changes in Hungary from the beginning of the 20th century to the...
(1999) – a three-hour historical epic, and an English-language, international co-production – was viewed by many critics as Szabó’s most ambitious film, and, along with Mephisto, his most important. Hungary’s Jews had figured in either a marginal or coded fashion in several of Szabó’s earlier films, produced during the socialist period when discourse around the history of the country’s Jews was more highly circumscribed. In Sunshine, for the first time, Szabó focused explicitly on this aspect of Hungarian history, which he himself had experienced as a child during the Arrow Cross dictatorship. Ralph Fiennes
Ralph Fiennes
Ralph Nathaniel Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes is an English actor and film director. He has appeared in such films as The English Patient, In Bruges, The Constant Gardener, Strange Days, The Duchess and Schindler's List....
plays three generations in the Sonnenschein family as they experience the trials of twentieth-century Hungarian Jewish history, from the late Austro-Hungarian Empire through the Holocaust to the 1956 Revolution. Several characters are based on real people, including the Zwack family
Zwack liqueur
Zwack is an 80 proof herbal liqueur made in Hungary with a secret blend of more than 40 different herbs and spices. It is known as the National Shot of Hungary, is produced by Unicum Zwack, plc, in Budapest, Hungary, and is now imported into the US by Diageo.-History:Unicum was created by Dr...
, with their successful liquor business, the Olympic fencer Attila Petschauer
Attila Petschauer
Attila Petschauer was a Jewish Hungarian Olympic fencer.-Fencing career:Born in Budapest, Petschauer was a member of the Hungarian fencing team in the 1928 and 1932 Olympics...
, and the Jewish police official Ernö Szücs. The film won European Film Awards for Best Screenwriter, Best Actor, and Best Cinematographer. It received a rating of 74% Fresh from review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
. An example of an extremely positive review was that of Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
of the Chicago Sun-Times, who called it “a movie of substance and thrilling historical sweep.” A. O. Scott of the New York Times had a more mixed reaction, writing that, by the end, "the movie has accumulated sufficient power and momentum to erase the memory of its earlier awkwardness. It shows such sympathy for its characters, and approaches its subject with such intelligence, that it's easy to forgive the clumsy editing, the haphazard insertion of black-and-white newsreels, and the hyperventilating sexual ardor that seems to be a Sors family curse."
In Taking Sides
Taking Sides
Taking Sides may refer to:* Taking Sides , a 1995 play by Ronald Harwood.* Taking Sides , a 2001 adaptation of Harwood's play, directed by István Szabó....
(2001), Szabó returned to thematic territory he had explored in Mephisto. Stellan Skarsgård
Stellan Skarsgård
Stellan John Skarsgård is a Swedish actor, known internationally for his film roles in Angels & Demons, Breaking the Waves, The Hunt for Red October, Ronin, Good Will Hunting, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist,...
plays real life German conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler
Wilhelm Furtwängler
Wilhelm Furtwängler was a German conductor and composer. He is widely considered to have been one of the greatest symphonic and operatic conductors of the 20th century. By the 1930s he had built a reputation as one of the leading conductors in Europe, and he was the leading conductor who remained...
, and Harvey Keitel
Harvey Keitel
Harvey Keitel is an American actor. Some of his most notable starring roles were in Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets and Taxi Driver, Ridley Scott's The Duellists and Thelma and Louise, Ettore Scola's That Night in Varennes, Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, Jane Campion's The...
a U.S. Army investigator interrogating Furtwängler about his collaboration with the Nazis. The film won several awards at the Mar del Plata Film Festival
Mar del Plata Film Festival
The Mar del Plata International Film Festival is an international film festival that takes place every November in the city of Mar del Plata, Argentina...
in Argentina, including Best Director.
Being Julia
Being Julia
Being Julia is a 2004 drama film with comic undertones directed by István Szabó and starring Annette Bening and Jeremy Irons. The screenplay by Ronald Harwood is based on the 1937 novel Theatre by W. Somerset Maugham...
(2004), based on a novel by W. Somerset Maugham
W. Somerset Maugham
William Somerset Maugham , CH was an English playwright, novelist and short story writer. He was among the most popular writers of his era and, reputedly, the highest paid author during the 1930s.-Childhood and education:...
, stars Annette Bening
Annette Bening
Annette Carol Bening is an American actress. Bening is a four-time Oscar nominee for her roles in The Grifters, American Beauty, Being Julia and The Kids Are All Right, winning Golden Globe Awards for the latter two films...
as a famous British actress experiencing a series of romantic and professional rivalries. Bening won a Golden Globe Award
Golden Globe Award
The Golden Globe Award is an accolade bestowed by the 93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association recognizing excellence in film and television, both domestic and foreign...
for her performance.
Rokonok (2006) was a Hungarian production based on a 1932 novel by Zsigmond Móricz
Zsigmond Móricz
Zsigmond Móricz was a major Hungarian novelist and Social Realist. He was among the earliest significant literary figures writing in Hungarian.- Early life and education :...
about political corruption. Sándor Csányi
Sándor Csányi
Sándor Csányi is a Hungarian actor.Csányi aimed to be an actor from an early age and was admitted into the Hungarian University of Theater and Film on his fourth attempt...
plays a newly elected attorney general whose relatives (rokonok) come out of the woodwork looking for favors.
Szabó’s current project is The Door, an English language production based on a Hungarian novel
The Door (novel)
The Door is a novel by Hungarian writer Magda Szabó . The novel concerns the developing relationship between a young Hungarian writer and her cleaner, and is partly autobiographical....
by Magda Szabó
Magda Szabó
Magda Szabó was a Hungarian writer, arguably Hungary's foremost woman novelist. She also wrote dramas, essays, studies, memories and poetry....
(no relation).
Szabó’s frequent collaborators have included actors András Bálint
András Bálint
András Bálint is a Hungarian actor. He has appeared in over 75 films and television shows since 1958.-Selected filmography:* Father * The Confrontation * Szerelmesfilm * Trotta...
, Klaus Maria Brandauer
Klaus Maria Brandauer
Klaus Maria Brandauer is an Austrian actor, film director, and professor at the Max Reinhardt Seminar in Vienna.-Personal life:...
, Péter Andorai
Péter Andorai
Péter Andorai is a Hungarian actor. He has appeared in over 90 films since 1975. He starred in the 1980 film Bizalom, which was entered into the 30th Berlin International Film Festival, where it won the Silver Bear for Best Director....
, and Ildikó Bánsági; cinematographer Lajos Koltai
Lajos Koltai
Lajos Koltai, ASC, HSC, is a Hungarian cinematographer and film director best known for his work with legendary Hungarian director Istvan Szabo, and Italian filmmaker Giuseppe Tornatore...
; and screenwriters Péter Dobai and Andrea Vészits.
Themes
Several interconnected themes run through Szabó’s films, the most common being the relationship between the personal and the political or historical. On the personal level, his first three feature films deal with coming of ageComing-of-age film
Coming-of-age film is a film genre which focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from youth to adulthood. Personal growth and change is an important characteristic of this genre, which relies on dialogue and emotional responses, rather than action. The main character is...
issues, but political/historical events form the backdrop of these issues and continually rupture the attempts of the characters to lead their private lives. In an interview in 2008, Szabó said, “My mother once told me, ‘We had a nice childhood and our youth was beautiful, but our life was destroyed by politics and history.’” The political/historical events most commonly depicted are the dominant traumatic events of mid-20th century Hungarian and Central European history – Nazism, the Second World War, and, in Hungary – or, more accurately, Budapest – the Arrow Cross dictatorship and the Holocaust, the Communist takeover, and the 1956 Revolution. Szabó himself has frequently referred to this theme as the search for security.
A related theme is the moral compromises individuals make in order to succeed in immoral political systems. In an interview about Taking Sides, Szabó said, “I don't think that life is possible without making compromises. The question is only one of limits: how far to go. When one crosses the line, then the compromise starts to be a bad, even deadly, one.” This theme is dominant in the Brandauer trilogy and, as Istvan Deak points out, may be related to Szabó’s own collaboration with the Communist secret police.
Another closely related theme is the arts – most often theater, but also music and film itself. In several of Szabó’s films – most famously in Mephisto – artists become caught up in conflicts around politics, role-playing, and identity.
Style
Szabó’s early films – culminating in Lovefilm and 25 Fireman Street – were influenced by the French New WaveFrench New Wave
The New Wave was a blanket term coined by critics for a group of French filmmakers of the late 1950s and 1960s, influenced by Italian Neorealism and classical Hollywood cinema. Although never a formally organized movement, the New Wave filmmakers were linked by their self-conscious rejection of...
in their experimentation with flashbacks, dream sequences, and unconventional narrative structures built on these techniques.
Szabó emphasizes iconography in his films, insofar as he tends to invest certain objects and places with symbolic meaning. Tram cars play this role in many of his films, and one becomes the central image in Budapest Tales. Budapest itself plays an important role in many of his films, including scenes of the Danube and of buildings Szabó lived in when he was a child.
Acting also plays a key role in Szabó’s films, as he values psychological complexity in his central characters. In his first several features, he tended to use the same lead actors over and over – first András Bálint, then Klaus Maria Brandauer. Consistent with this focus on acting, he frequently employs long close-up
Close-up
In filmmaking, television production, still photography and the comic strip medium a close-up tightly frames a person or an object. Close-ups are one of the standard shots used regularly with medium shots and long shots . Close-ups display the most detail, but they do not include the broader scene...
shots to emphasize the play of emotions on the faces of his characters.
Other work
In addition to writing and directing films, Szabó has also served in a variety of other capacities in the film industry, including writing and directing television movies and episodesEpisode
An episode is a part of a dramatic work such as a serial television or radio program. An episode is a part of a sequence of a body of work, akin to a chapter of a book. The term sometimes applies to works based on other forms of mass media as well, as in Star Wars...
, short films, and documentaries, as well as serving as assistant director
Assistant director
The role of an Assistant director include tracking daily progress against the filming production schedule, arranging logistics, preparing daily call sheets, checking cast and crew, maintaining order on the set. They also have to take care of health and safety of the crew...
, screenwriter, producer
Film producer
A film producer oversees and delivers a film project to all relevant parties while preserving the integrity, voice and vision of the film. They will also often take on some financial risk by using their own money, especially during the pre-production period, before a film is fully financed.The...
, and actor in films directed by others.
Szabó has also directed several operas, including Tannhäuser
Tannhäuser
Tannhäuser was a German Minnesänger and poet. Historically, his biography is obscure beyond the poetry, which dates between 1245 and 1265...
in Paris, Boris Godunov
Boris Godunov (opera)
Boris Godunov is an opera by Modest Mussorgsky . The work was composed between 1868 and 1873 in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It is Mussorgsky's only completed opera and is considered his masterpiece. Its subjects are the Russian ruler Boris Godunov, who reigned as Tsar during the Time of Troubles,...
in Leipzig, Il Trovatore
Il trovatore
Il trovatore is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Salvadore Cammarano, based on the play El Trovador by Antonio García Gutiérrez. Cammarano died in mid-1852 before completing the libretto...
in Vienna, and Three Sisters in Budapest. He has taught at film schools in Budapest, London, Berlin, and Vienna. In 1989, he was one of the founding members of the European Film Academy
European Film Academy
The European Film Academy is an initiative of a group of European filmmakers who came together in Berlin on the occasion of the first presentation of the European Film Awards in November 1988.- European Film Academy :...
, and in 1992, of the Széchenyi Academy of Literature and Arts
Széchenyi Academy of Literature and Arts
The Széchenyi Academy of Literature and Arts was created in 1992 as an academy associated yet independent from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. It is intended to be the national academy of artists and writers, who could be elected to the HAS until the 1949 reforms. The president is Károly Makk,...
.
Filmography
| Year | Title | Country | Length | Director | Writer | Other |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1959 | A Hetedik napon | Hungary | Short | Yes | Yes | |
| 1960 | Bill Poster | Hungary | Short | Yes | Yes | |
| 1961 | Variációk egy témára | Hungary | Short | Yes | Yes | |
| 1962 | Délibáb minden mennyiségben | Hungary | Short | Yes | Yes | |
| 1963 | Párbeszéd | Hungary | Feature | Yes | Assistant Director | |
| 1963 | You | Hungary | Short | Yes | Yes | Producer |
| 1963 | Koncert | Hungary | Short | Yes | Yes | |
| 1965 | Artists | Hungary | Short | Yes | ||
| 1965 | Traffic-Rule Tale for Children | Hungary | Short | Yes | Yes | |
| 1965 | Age of Illusions | Hungary | Feature | Yes | Yes | |
| 1966 | Children's Sicknesses | Hungary | Feature | Script Editor | ||
| 1966 | Father Father (1966 film) Father is a 1966 Hungarian drama film written and directed by István Szabó. The film is a coming of age story. The main character copes with his childhood loss of his father against the backdrop of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and memories of the Arrow Cross dictatorship.-Cast:* András Bálint... |
Hungary | Feature | Yes | Yes | Actor: voice of film director |
| 1967 | Red Letter Days | Hungary | Feature | Script Editor | ||
| 1967 | Piety | Hungary | Short | Yes | Yes | |
| 1970 | Lovefilm Lovefilm (film) Lovefilm is a 1970 Hungarian drama film written and directed by István Szabó. The film was selected as the Hungarian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 43rd Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee.... |
Hungary | Feature | Yes | Yes | |
| 1971 | Budapest, Why I Love It (collection of short films: “The Square,” “A Mirror,” “Danube, Fishes, Birds,” “Portrait of a Girl,” “Dream About a House”) | Hungary | Short | Yes | Yes | |
| 1973 | 25 Fireman Street | Hungary | Feature | Yes | Yes | |
| 1977 | Várostérkép | Hungary | Short | Yes | Yes | |
| 1977 | Budapest Tales Budapest Tales Budapest Tales is a 1976 Hungarian drama film directed by István Szabó. It was entered into the 1977 Cannes Film Festival.-Cast:* Ági Mészáros as Fényes' Mother* Maja Komorowska as Girl Who Knows the Colors* Franciszek Pieczka* András Bálint as Fényes... |
Hungary | Feature | Yes | Yes | |
| 1978 | Places on Sunday | Hungary | Short | Yes | Yes | |
| 1978 | The Hungarians | Hungary | Feature | Actor: Abris Kondor | ||
| 1980 | Bálint Fábián Meets God | Hungary | Feature | Actor: András | ||
| 1980 | Confidence | Hungary | Feature | Yes | Yes | |
| 1980 | Der grüne Vogel | West Germany | Feature | Yes | Yes | |
| 1981 | Mephisto Mephisto (1981 film) Mephisto is the title of a 1981 film adaptation of Klaus Mann's novel of the same name, directed by István Szabó, and starring Klaus Maria Brandauer as Hendrik Höfgen... |
West Germany, Hungary, Austria | Feature | Yes | Co-writer | Actor: Theatre party attendant |
| 1985 | Colonel Redl | Yugoslavia, Hungary, Austria, West Germany | Feature | Yes | Co-writer | |
| 1987 | Laura | Hungary | Feature | Consultant | ||
| 1988 | Hanussen | Hungary, West Germany, Austria | Feature | Yes | Co-writer | |
| 1989 | Túsztörténet | Hungary | Feature | Actor: Fõorvos | ||
| 1990 | Eszterkönyv | Hungary | Feature | Artistic Producer | ||
| 1991 | Meeting Venus Meeting Venus Meeting Venus is a 1991 British–American-Japanese film directed by the Hungarian director István Szabó and starring Glenn Close, Niels Arestrup, Marián Labuda, Victor Poletti, Jay O. Sanders, Maria de Medeiros and Johanna ter Steege... |
UK, Japan, USA | Feature | Yes | Co-writer | |
| 1991 | Sweet Emma, Dear Böbe – Sketches, Nudes | Hungary | Feature | Yes | Co-writer | |
| 1993 | Prinzenbad | Germany, Hungary | Feature | Producer | ||
| 1994 | Utrius | Hungary | Feature | Actor | ||
| 1995 | Esti Kornél csodálatos utazása | Hungary | Feature | Consultant | ||
| 1996 | A csónak biztonsága | Hungary | Short | Yes | ||
| 1997 | Franciska vasárnapjai | Hungary | Feature | Actor: Orvos | ||
| 1997 | Place Vendôme Place Vendôme (film) Place Vendôme is a 1998 film directed by Nicole Garcia, starring Catherine Deneuve, and named after the Place Vendôme in Paris.Deneuve won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at Venice Film Festival for her role in the film.-Plot:... |
France | Feature | Actor: Charlie Rosen | ||
| 1999 | Sunshine Sunshine (1999 film) Sunshine is a 1999 historical film written by Israel Horovitz and István Szabó, directed and produced by István Szabó. It follows three generations of a Jewish family during the changes in Hungary from the beginning of the 20th century to the... |
Germany, Austria, Canada, Hungary | Feature | Yes | Co-writer | Lyrics: "Please God May We Always Go on Singing" |
| 2001 | Taking Sides Taking Sides (film) Taking Sides is a 2001 German-French-Austrian-British co-production starring Harvey Keitel and Stellan Skarsgård set during the period of denazification investigations conducted in post-war Germany after the Second World War... |
France, UK, Germany, Austria | Feature | Yes | Actor: Passenger on train | |
| 2002 | Ten Minutes Older: The Cello (segment: "Ten Minutes After") | UK, Germany, France | Feature | Yes | Yes | |
| 2003 | The Colour of Happiness | Hungary | Feature | Consultant | ||
| 2004 | Európából Európába (segment 2) | Hungary | Short | Yes | ||
| 2004 | Being Julia Being Julia Being Julia is a 2004 drama film with comic undertones directed by István Szabó and starring Annette Bening and Jeremy Irons. The screenplay by Ronald Harwood is based on the 1937 novel Theatre by W. Somerset Maugham... |
Canada, USA, Hungary, UK | Feature | Yes | ||
| 2004 | Shem | Israel, UK | Feature | Actor: Elijah | ||
| 2006 | Rokonok | Hungary | Feature | Yes | Co-writer | Actor: voice of Mr. Menzel |
| 2006 | I Served the King of England I Served the King of England (film) I Served the King of England is a 2006 Czech film, directed by Jiří Menzel and based on the novel by Bohumil Hrabal. This film is Menzel's sixth adaptation of the works of Hrabal for film... |
Czech Republic, Slovakia | Feature | Actor: Stock marketeer | ||
| 2011 | The Door | Hungary | Feature | Yes | Co-writer | |
Television
| Year | Title | Country | Length | Director | Writer |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1968 | Bors (episode: “Vesztegzár a határon”) | Hungary | Feature | Yes | |
| 1974 | Ösbemutató | Hungary | Feature | Yes | Yes |
| 1982 | Levél apámhoz (Letter to my Father) | Hungary | Feature | Yes | Based on the letter by Franz Kafka |
| 1983 | Katzenspiel | West Germany, Canada | Feature | Yes | |
| 1984 | Bali | West Germany, Austria | Feature | Yes | |
| 1984 | Isten teremtményei | Feature | Yes | Story | |
| 1996 | Offenbachs Geheimnis | Germany, France, Hungary | Feature | Yes | |
Appearances in documentaries
| Year | Title | Country |
|---|---|---|
| 1982 | Történetek a magyar filmröl | Hungary |
| 1998 | TV a város szélén (episode 1.1) | Hungary |
| 2002 | Simó Sándor | Hungary |
| 2004 | Gero von Boehm begegnet... | Germany |
| 2005 | Into the Night with... | Germany, France |
| 2006 | The Outsider | Canada |
| 2007 | The Fallen Vampire | France, Romania, Austria, Germany, Netherlands |
| 2007 | Close-up (episode: “Bela Lugosi: Dracula's Dubbelganger”) | Netherlands, Germany, Belgium |
| 2008 | Szakácskirály | Hungary |
| 2010 | Sodankylä ikuisesti | Finland |