- Occupation
Producer - Country
Hungary
László Sára
3 Weddings: Elena & Leo
In 1956, Elena was only four when her parents left Hungary to build a new life in Argentina. She became an immigrant for the second time when she returned to Hungary in 1975. She was scrutinized by the communist authorities as a potential spy and had to fight prejudice to be accepted and feel like a Hungarian again. In 2008 she fell in love with Leo, a 35-year-old guy from Cuba. They got married in Budapest, but bureaucracy and prejudice threaten their relationship and may turn them both into migrants … again. Through the love story of Elena and Leo we learn more about migrant illusions, nostalgia and homesickness.This short documentary is part of the "3 Weddings" series (3 esküvő, 3 x 26 min).
3 Weddings: Bernadett & Sanju
Love through the Internet. A fairy tale about an adventurous marriage connecting three continents. Is a 2 month-old internet acquaintance enough to know that She/he is Mr/Mrs Right? A Bollywoodlike story about a marriage of a Hungarian girl and a guy from India. This short documentary is part of the "3 Weddings" series (3 esküvő, 3 x 26 min).
3 Weddings: Home Paradise (Zsuzsa & Mubarak)
Mubarak is a 2m tall, 30- year- old Muslim from Africa. Zsuzsa is a young lady with gentle curves from Budapest.They are in love.The pitfalls of acceptance, adjustment and communication challenge their relationship. Mubarak is deeply religious, Zsuzsa is a modern woman with a uniquely strong personality. The snapshots of their marriage show how Islam and Eastern European culture and two diametrically opposite personalities search for harmony. This short documentary is part of the "3 Weddings" series (3 esküvő, 3 x 26 min).
Everlasting Damages
With the thinning of the middle class in Hungary, wider and wider social layers get close to lagging behind socially. Each of the four “everyday” characters of the film has to face a typical situation: divorce, unemployment, indebtedness, losing their home and living the life of the homeless
Caught Between Two Worlds
Lia, Ahmed, Bebe and Usama, came to Hungary from different parts of the world and they are now in a Hungarian refugee camp. All of them have left their homeland for different reasons. Wars, family dramas, serious physical and psychological traumas drove them away, with their faces still carrying the story of their suffering, their bodies still bearing the traces of violence. Soon they have to leave the camp and start the real living in an unknown country whose language they can hardly speak. Will they be able to settle down in a strange land? This film is a dramatic journey into the depths of being a refugee, and it shows us what it feels like when you have to start everything from scratch in a country unknown to you.
Last Call - Dresden Dolls
Lyrical and rough snapshots of a punk band; in-depth interview about their music, their lives, their motivations, their pilgrimage and their tour. But most of all, their music, the music of the Dresden Dolls - modern hard rock music, amazing invention, energy and talent. Two parallel interviews with the two musicians who, although in love with each other, still feel it impossible to stay, live and play together… However, separation would be equally unimaginable for them.
Every Day of Allah Horses Run
Turkish-Arab-Muslim-Hungarian or Muslim-Arab-Hungarian-Turkish Budapest as we have never knew it. Will the butcher, who knows the Islamic cut, arrive for the store opening from Istanbul in time? And why cannot the oldest and much seen Turk of Budapest tear himself apart from Hungary? Is the deeply religious bachelor looking for a Hungarian or a Turkish wife? How does an Arab adolescent, born in Budapest, get along with his identity at a time when love shatters his heart and religious prohibitions control his soul? Through the marginal scenes of everyday life we approach the large-scale issues of integration of the Muslim community of Budapest.
In 1956, Elena was only four when her parents left Hungary to build a new life in Argentina. She became an immigrant for the second time when she returned to Hungary in 1975. She was scrutinized by the communist authorities as a potential spy and had to fight prejudice to be accepted and feel like a Hungarian again. In 2008 she fell in love with Leo, a 35-year-old guy from Cuba. They got married in Budapest, but bureaucracy and prejudice threaten their relationship and may turn them both into migrants … again. Through the love story of Elena and Leo we learn more about migrant illusions, nostalgia and homesickness.This short documentary is part of the "3 Weddings" series (3 esküvő, 3 x 26 min).
3 Weddings: Bernadett & Sanju
Love through the Internet. A fairy tale about an adventurous marriage connecting three continents. Is a 2 month-old internet acquaintance enough to know that She/he is Mr/Mrs Right? A Bollywoodlike story about a marriage of a Hungarian girl and a guy from India. This short documentary is part of the "3 Weddings" series (3 esküvő, 3 x 26 min).
3 Weddings: Home Paradise (Zsuzsa & Mubarak)
Mubarak is a 2m tall, 30- year- old Muslim from Africa. Zsuzsa is a young lady with gentle curves from Budapest.They are in love.The pitfalls of acceptance, adjustment and communication challenge their relationship. Mubarak is deeply religious, Zsuzsa is a modern woman with a uniquely strong personality. The snapshots of their marriage show how Islam and Eastern European culture and two diametrically opposite personalities search for harmony. This short documentary is part of the "3 Weddings" series (3 esküvő, 3 x 26 min).
Everlasting Damages
With the thinning of the middle class in Hungary, wider and wider social layers get close to lagging behind socially. Each of the four “everyday” characters of the film has to face a typical situation: divorce, unemployment, indebtedness, losing their home and living the life of the homeless
Caught Between Two Worlds
Lia, Ahmed, Bebe and Usama, came to Hungary from different parts of the world and they are now in a Hungarian refugee camp. All of them have left their homeland for different reasons. Wars, family dramas, serious physical and psychological traumas drove them away, with their faces still carrying the story of their suffering, their bodies still bearing the traces of violence. Soon they have to leave the camp and start the real living in an unknown country whose language they can hardly speak. Will they be able to settle down in a strange land? This film is a dramatic journey into the depths of being a refugee, and it shows us what it feels like when you have to start everything from scratch in a country unknown to you.
Last Call - Dresden Dolls
Lyrical and rough snapshots of a punk band; in-depth interview about their music, their lives, their motivations, their pilgrimage and their tour. But most of all, their music, the music of the Dresden Dolls - modern hard rock music, amazing invention, energy and talent. Two parallel interviews with the two musicians who, although in love with each other, still feel it impossible to stay, live and play together… However, separation would be equally unimaginable for them.
Every Day of Allah Horses Run
Turkish-Arab-Muslim-Hungarian or Muslim-Arab-Hungarian-Turkish Budapest as we have never knew it. Will the butcher, who knows the Islamic cut, arrive for the store opening from Istanbul in time? And why cannot the oldest and much seen Turk of Budapest tear himself apart from Hungary? Is the deeply religious bachelor looking for a Hungarian or a Turkish wife? How does an Arab adolescent, born in Budapest, get along with his identity at a time when love shatters his heart and religious prohibitions control his soul? Through the marginal scenes of everyday life we approach the large-scale issues of integration of the Muslim community of Budapest.
Cain's Children
Our project endeavours to search the characters of a Hungarian film entitled ‘Failed’ (original title: Bebukottak), a documentary created back in 1984 about juveniles serving time after having been convicted of murder. Unquenchable curiousness is what serves as the starting point: what will happen to the stigmatized? With never-before-seen footage and stories that no one had imagined were possible, ‘Failed’ was a one-of-a-kind documentary in its era that would have shocked the public, as in Hungary living its last decade of Communism, it was never released officially. In its arid and minimalist realm, ‘Failed’ articulates all in-depth interviews with the boys with remarkable force and sincerity. They speak of the crimes they had committed, about the merciless prison environment they are surrounded with and also mention some plans for after they are released. Today, thirty years – more than a generation – later, it is clear what direction the lives of these once teenagers had taken. These are the lives, these are the fates we would like to search, find and contrast with the plans of youth that once had existed.
Invasion
Subotica and the area of the Serbian-Hungarian border is the final destination of Asian and African immigrants before the Schengen border. The human traffickers take them to this point from their homelands on a long journey usually for 10 000 Euros. Others arrange the crossing of the Serbian-Hungarian border, one of the most guarded border sections of Europe for higher tariffs but still, smooth passing through the border is not guaranteed to Hungary and beyond. The destination is Austria or Germany where the friends and relatives live. But Hungary is a “big problem”. Ali the Afghan and Ahmed the Pakistani warm together by the fire near the waste disposal site of Subotica. They keep vigil during the night, fall asleep in the dawn. They are afraid. Usually thieves, the Serbian police or the waste disposal site’s gypsies break in upon them. During the day, Ali asks himself into the neighboring ranch to wash up. The Croatian owner and his Hungarian wife let him use the garden tap. Ali gets the news in SMS that he’s received money by wire. He hops a cab after the Western Union branch and gets himself taken near the Serbian border for a hundred Euros. A few people are already waiting there to cross the border. There are some for whom this will already be the third time. On the other side of the border, Laci and Erika are taking up their border guarding patrol duty. They leave in their SUV on the well-known roads. Laci has served for twelve years: „they are to be stopped as while Hungarians do a job for 500 forints an hour, the Afghans would do it for 150 or even less.” There’s catch every day. The heat cameras in the high towers see miles away day and night. The operator simply tells the patrol where movement is detected and the border violator is in jail within an hour awaiting the interrogation. Most of them are handed over to the Serbian border guards on the same day and they can go back to their makeshift nylon tents around Subotica until they try crossing again. Auntie Irene is exploring the barren land with her binoculars. Her dogs bark bloodthirstily; some strangers must be crossing the green border only five hundred meters away. Auntie Irene (67) takes action. She searches for the traces with her torchlight in the dusk and calls Laci to come, as there seems to be a promising catch. She regularly reports on the border violators in defense of her homeland. Pastor Tibor Varga is a missionary. He is a 46 year-old, teddy-bear like, smiling man with 7 children. Working for the Eastern European Mission, he is based in Serbia, helping muslim immigrants with food, cloth and healthcare, often risking his own safety. While doing that, as a Christian man, he is very much afraid of the growing number and influence of the European Muslim society on one hand and the decreasing presence and importance of Christian spirituality in European Culture on the other. Each year he celebrates Christmas Eve amongst the homeless (mainly muslim) immigrants, who are waiting to cross the border. We wish to create a movie from these four aspects about the continuously growing refugee invasion which is getting harder and harder to stop. Even the locals cannot back out from this issue. They are forced to take a stand in one way or another if they catch sight of a Somalian family with a baby in their garden or a dozen young Afghan men fallen away. This is a test of human solidarity: should they report them or should they give them bread and shelter? There are some who see making a living from the newcomers. They help them for good money, smuggle them across the dangerous border section. The documentary will be set at Christmas time. It is important regarding our story as Christmas is the most important religious holiday in Europe but is also an opportunity for the European muslim immigrants to visit their homes. They use the same route as the illegal immigrants who try to cross the border from the opposite direction. The border police is busy with checking the cars and buses of those returning home and so they don’t have the sufficient staff to cover the whole border section and watch out for illegal border violators. By the means of the aspect changes and the symbol of Christmas Eve, we are able to present one of the most serious issues affecting our continent with due preparedness and sensitivity. The film will challenge the audience. Through ambivalent situations it can make the viewers struggle with their own fears and prejudices.
Harm
„I bought a blade, some bandages, they’d run out of pressure bandages. Such a shame, since a deeply cut arm bleeds like hell. The only pleasure I have left in connection with myself is seeing my blood drip; a pleasant, numb, pulsating pain, the never ending feeling of ’I’m alive at last’. I can feel my lungs, my heartbeat. It’s a soft, tingling feeling, as if someone was caressing my arm. I go to sleep feeling great – with my arm bound up. I know I shouldn’t be doing this, and I really don’t want to, but still, when I notice the scars are starting to be gone, I just need to make a few more cuts on my arm, because I miss them… Now I regret having started it, but now I just don’t seem to be able to stop. Please help me.” Anonymous blogger: http://www.varoszoba.hu/show/2010/09/27/borotvaelen_tancikalok_hm
Our project endeavours to search the characters of a Hungarian film entitled ‘Failed’ (original title: Bebukottak), a documentary created back in 1984 about juveniles serving time after having been convicted of murder. Unquenchable curiousness is what serves as the starting point: what will happen to the stigmatized? With never-before-seen footage and stories that no one had imagined were possible, ‘Failed’ was a one-of-a-kind documentary in its era that would have shocked the public, as in Hungary living its last decade of Communism, it was never released officially. In its arid and minimalist realm, ‘Failed’ articulates all in-depth interviews with the boys with remarkable force and sincerity. They speak of the crimes they had committed, about the merciless prison environment they are surrounded with and also mention some plans for after they are released. Today, thirty years – more than a generation – later, it is clear what direction the lives of these once teenagers had taken. These are the lives, these are the fates we would like to search, find and contrast with the plans of youth that once had existed.
Invasion
Subotica and the area of the Serbian-Hungarian border is the final destination of Asian and African immigrants before the Schengen border. The human traffickers take them to this point from their homelands on a long journey usually for 10 000 Euros. Others arrange the crossing of the Serbian-Hungarian border, one of the most guarded border sections of Europe for higher tariffs but still, smooth passing through the border is not guaranteed to Hungary and beyond. The destination is Austria or Germany where the friends and relatives live. But Hungary is a “big problem”. Ali the Afghan and Ahmed the Pakistani warm together by the fire near the waste disposal site of Subotica. They keep vigil during the night, fall asleep in the dawn. They are afraid. Usually thieves, the Serbian police or the waste disposal site’s gypsies break in upon them. During the day, Ali asks himself into the neighboring ranch to wash up. The Croatian owner and his Hungarian wife let him use the garden tap. Ali gets the news in SMS that he’s received money by wire. He hops a cab after the Western Union branch and gets himself taken near the Serbian border for a hundred Euros. A few people are already waiting there to cross the border. There are some for whom this will already be the third time. On the other side of the border, Laci and Erika are taking up their border guarding patrol duty. They leave in their SUV on the well-known roads. Laci has served for twelve years: „they are to be stopped as while Hungarians do a job for 500 forints an hour, the Afghans would do it for 150 or even less.” There’s catch every day. The heat cameras in the high towers see miles away day and night. The operator simply tells the patrol where movement is detected and the border violator is in jail within an hour awaiting the interrogation. Most of them are handed over to the Serbian border guards on the same day and they can go back to their makeshift nylon tents around Subotica until they try crossing again. Auntie Irene is exploring the barren land with her binoculars. Her dogs bark bloodthirstily; some strangers must be crossing the green border only five hundred meters away. Auntie Irene (67) takes action. She searches for the traces with her torchlight in the dusk and calls Laci to come, as there seems to be a promising catch. She regularly reports on the border violators in defense of her homeland. Pastor Tibor Varga is a missionary. He is a 46 year-old, teddy-bear like, smiling man with 7 children. Working for the Eastern European Mission, he is based in Serbia, helping muslim immigrants with food, cloth and healthcare, often risking his own safety. While doing that, as a Christian man, he is very much afraid of the growing number and influence of the European Muslim society on one hand and the decreasing presence and importance of Christian spirituality in European Culture on the other. Each year he celebrates Christmas Eve amongst the homeless (mainly muslim) immigrants, who are waiting to cross the border. We wish to create a movie from these four aspects about the continuously growing refugee invasion which is getting harder and harder to stop. Even the locals cannot back out from this issue. They are forced to take a stand in one way or another if they catch sight of a Somalian family with a baby in their garden or a dozen young Afghan men fallen away. This is a test of human solidarity: should they report them or should they give them bread and shelter? There are some who see making a living from the newcomers. They help them for good money, smuggle them across the dangerous border section. The documentary will be set at Christmas time. It is important regarding our story as Christmas is the most important religious holiday in Europe but is also an opportunity for the European muslim immigrants to visit their homes. They use the same route as the illegal immigrants who try to cross the border from the opposite direction. The border police is busy with checking the cars and buses of those returning home and so they don’t have the sufficient staff to cover the whole border section and watch out for illegal border violators. By the means of the aspect changes and the symbol of Christmas Eve, we are able to present one of the most serious issues affecting our continent with due preparedness and sensitivity. The film will challenge the audience. Through ambivalent situations it can make the viewers struggle with their own fears and prejudices.
Harm
„I bought a blade, some bandages, they’d run out of pressure bandages. Such a shame, since a deeply cut arm bleeds like hell. The only pleasure I have left in connection with myself is seeing my blood drip; a pleasant, numb, pulsating pain, the never ending feeling of ’I’m alive at last’. I can feel my lungs, my heartbeat. It’s a soft, tingling feeling, as if someone was caressing my arm. I go to sleep feeling great – with my arm bound up. I know I shouldn’t be doing this, and I really don’t want to, but still, when I notice the scars are starting to be gone, I just need to make a few more cuts on my arm, because I miss them… Now I regret having started it, but now I just don’t seem to be able to stop. Please help me.” Anonymous blogger: http://www.varoszoba.hu/show/2010/09/27/borotvaelen_tancikalok_hm
Sára LÁSZLÓ is a graduate of the University of Theatre and Film of Budapest, Hungary. After her graduation she continued her education at the Producers’ Faculty of ESRA, Paris. Returning to Hungary, she co-founded Campfilm Production in 2007. Starting from making films that rely heavily on acquaintances and favours, through the five years of Campfilm’s existence she have completed bigger and more and more complex projects, both content-wise and financially. She have successfully worked on a co-production with a national television channel (Duna Television), a commissioned production for HBO Central Europe, two feature lenght documentaries supported by the European Integaration Fund and an executive production for Silex Films, Paris. Most of these productions have dealt with minority issues and/or marginalized people. The films completed so far gained recognition in national and international film festivals and were screened on several television channels. In 2012 the feature lenth documentary of Viktor Oszkár Nagy“Caught Between Two Worlds” received the ‘Best Hungarian Documentary of 2011 Prize’ awarded by the Hungarian Film Critics and in 2012 it was awarded by the Golden Eye Cinematographers' Prize. Currently she has numerous projects in different stages of development or production.
Every Day of Allah Horses RunLast Call-Dresden Dolls3WeddingsCaught Between Two Worlds
Campfilm Production
Károly krt. 3/c
H-1075 Budapest
Károly krt. 3/c
H-1075 Budapest
Project Market - 2013
Last Call - Dresden Dolls (documentary, 47’, dir: János Szász): 43th Hungarian Film Week, Budapest- in competition;
Own Time (portrait, 30’, dir: Dénes Nagy): 43th Hungarian Film Week, Budapest- in competition;
Every Day of Allah Horses Run (documentary, 72’, dir: Anna Kis): 43th Hungarian Film Week, Budapest- in competition;
Caught Between Two Worlds (documentary, 67ʼ, dir: Viktor Oszkár Nagy, produced for HBO Central Europe): 9th Golden Eye Festival, Budapest, 2012 - Best Cinematorgrapher, in documentary film category;
Hungarian Filmcritics` Prize 2012- Best Hungarian Documentary in 2011: Cinefest, International Film Festival, Hungary, 2011- The Best Documentary Film; 43rd Hungarian Film Week, Budapest, 2012- in official selection; 8th Zagreb Dox International Documentary Film Festival, Zagreb, 2012- in competition; FIPA- International Festival of Audiovisual Programs, Biarritz, 2012- in competition; Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival, 2011- in competition; 8th Verzio International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival, Budapest- in competition; Dokument, International Human Rights Festival, Glasgow, 2011- in competition; Film.Dok, International Documentary Film Festival, Romania, 2011- Special Prize of the Student Jury; "Bokréta és Biciklilánc" Film Festival, Hungary, 2011- Migration Cathegory- Special Mention of the Jury; 9th Film Palace Fest, International Film Festival – in competition.
Everlasting Damages (documentary, 52ʼ, dir: István Nemes, in co-production with Duna Television): Film.Dok, International Documentary Film Festival, Romania, 2011- The Best Screenplay Prize.
3Weddings (3 x 26’ documentary-series, dir: Viktor Oszkár Nagy, Anna Kis, Klára Trencsényi): 41th Hungarian Film Week – documentary category’s special mention– in the official program; Hungarian Doc Jam, Zagreb, 2010; 7th Verzio International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival- in the official program; Pécs 2010 European Capital of Culture Prize; 8th Docudays UA, International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival, 2011- in competition; 8. Film Palace Fest, International Short Film Festival – in competition.
Step Test (short, 28’, dir.: Zsófia Szilágyi): Brest International Short Film Festival 2009 – Jury’s special mention; 40th Hungarian Film Week, Budapest, Hungary – information program .
Self Portraits (mini documentary-series, 10 x 4’): My Europe08, Berlin, Germany – in competition.