In this conversation at the Review of Democracy, EnikőGyureskó- the Festival Director of Verzió International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival – discusses the program of the Verzió Film Festival, which will take place between 6-13 November; the rationale of choosing specific foci in this year’s program; the importance of documentaries in raising awareness about contemporary human rights issues; the collaborations between Verzió with other European festivals to promote human rights; the relevance of educational initiatives and university partnerships to foster critical engagement in Hungary.
Enikő Gyureskó has been a key figure at the Verzió Film Festival since 2016. Starting as Festival Coordinator, she became Managing Director in 2021 and was appointed Festival Director in 2024. Enikő is responsible for the festival’s development strategy, team management, fundraising, partnerships, and grants. Since 2022, she has also been a board member of MADOKE, the Hungarian Documentary Association. Enikő holds a BA in Liberal Arts, with a major in Art History and a minor in Philosophy, from Pázmány Péter Catholic University (2013), and an MA in Design and Art Management from Budapest Metropolitan University (2017).
Verzió created a much-needed platform in Hungary for international documentary films focused on human rights. Over 20 years, the festival has attracted more than 250,000 attendees. In 2020, it launched its online streaming platform, Verziotheque, offering films nationwide between festival editions. Verzió is a crucial gathering point for the documentary film community, hosting screenings, discussions, and events in Budapest and across Hungary. The festival partners with cinemas and cultural spaces in cities like Pécs, Szeged, and Debrecen. This year, the festival will run between 6th and 13th of November.
Adrian Matus: Verzió has become a key platform for raising awareness on pressing human rights issues through documentary filmmaking. Could you introduce us to the agenda of the Verzió Film Festival? How do you view its significance within the global landscape of human rights film festivals? What does it share with other such festivals and what might make it rather special?
Enikő Gyureskó: Verzió has been one of the steadiest festivals running in Hungary. This will be the 21st edition, and it takes place every year in November, not just in Budapest but currently in six other towns and online as well. It has a large regular audience that comes back to our editions yearly. At the same time, we also try to reach out to new audiences with each edition. Currently, about 20000 people participate yearly if we consider both offline venues and online audiences.
Regarding its international embedment, we are part of the Human Rights Film Network, which consists of over 40 human rights festivals globally. This network raises awareness of human rights and filmmakers in danger, or festival partners who operate in dangerous circumstances, such as Belarus or Central Asia, where democratic institutions do not exist, or people who work with human rights and social issues are under constant surveillance or harassment. Within this network, we try to provide support and raise international awareness whenever one of our members gets into trouble. It also serves as an exchange of experiences and a learning platform for all of us to improve our festivals. We are also trying to build strong relationships with several European festivals that are regionally closer to us. For example, the One World festival in Czechia has been one of our oldest partners. They were founded just a few years before Verzió and even inspired us when our festival was created. There are many similarities in how we think and do our programs. They (One World) also have many discussions, panel talks, and roundtables. Besides the screenings, just like Verzió, they try to cooperate with civil organizations and involve them in public debates. Watch Docs from Poland is an excellent example in this regard, being operated by Helsinki Foundation.
We regularly apply together to European funds. One of the major sponsors of film festivals is the Creative Europe program by the European Union. In the past couple of years, this program initiated a funding scheme that provides grants to festival networks. Thus, now we are in the Doc Around Europe network for the second year, which includes partners from Spain, Germany, Italy, and North Macedonia. We are focusing together on mentoring emerging talents and better circulating their works on a European level. These are similarities that we share.
One of our programs. funded through grant schemes such as Creative Europe Media and European Documentary Film Festival Network. is called Verzió DocLab. It focuses on developing documentaries which have a social aspect or human rights focus and takes place at the CEU’s Budapest campus. As well, the Young Critics Workshop, funded through this grant scheme, will take place for the third time at CEU during Verzió. This workshop wants to improve the skills of emerging writers and critics interested in the documentary genre. These international programs are free; we provide everything from travel to accommodation.
AM: Which are the main foci and highlights of this year’s festival? What documentaries stand out as particularly powerful to you from this year’s program?
EG: Our curatorial team is really excited about this year’s program! All the films stand out and we encourage everybody to try to watch as many films as their time allows. We try to screen every film twice during the festival’s eight days. Of course, we have some highlights that have already won outstanding awards internationally. If I have to name one, I will mention I’m Not Everything I Want To Be – a Czech film about a photographer discovered recently in the international art scene. Her photographs were unknown before; she was photographing everyday life and the people around her. She lived in a socialist country and worked in a factory because she had to and not because she wanted to. In this context, she took pictures of workers. At the same time, she identified herself as queer and went to illegal queer bars where she took photographs. Of course, these bars were illegal then, and she tried to hide these pictures. She also travelled to Berlin and witnessed the wall falling in 1989. She lived through exciting times and was present at important historic events.
This film consists solely of her photographs and has no single moving image. There are only photographs- about 3,000 of them – yet the team managed to edit it so that it does not become boring or monotonic. Even though the pictures are black and white, it is still such a powerful, visual, and empowering storytelling. I can only praise the editors who had to work hard to make it happen. We will have a Q& A session with the director, Klára Tasovská, who is coming to Verzió on the 9th of November so that you can catch her at Toldi Cinema.
This film also inspired our visuals this year. Every year, Verzió changes its visuals- our posters, our website, and our social media communications use still images from one particular movie. This year will be I’m Not Everything I Want to Be- our visuals play with a plastic foil, a plastic wrap that comes off and underneath these pictures emerge. In a way, it also references what happened in Hungary. I think last year, a new law came into action where people under 18 were not allowed anymore to open, in bookstores, books which talked about the lives of LGBT people or that depicted anything related to homosexuality. We disagree with this situation and are referencing this issue in our visuals this year.
AM: More generally, how do you select the movies? What kind of balance do you aim at between artistic merit and the urgency of the issues addressed?
EG: I think a good film always keeps its value through time. Perhaps from the technical standpoint, the approaches are evolving. The picture quality and the cameras used are often of much better quality. At the same time, some films are made with cell phones, not only with the best equipment. Not every filmmaker has access to such equipment.
However, it is not about that any more. The films have become more and more personal, focusing a lot on individual stories and embedding them in broader societal movements. This is the best way to make an emotional effect and draw the viewer closer to a story. In this way, the individuals are protagonists in these films and share intimate parts of their lives. These directors gain close access to many of the characters. Filmmakers also film about their own lives, and they are the protagonists in their films. The heaviness of these topics has always been a focal point since the festival’s first year. The particularity of the program remains the same, and every year, we try to bring films that deal with urgent topics.
War in Ukraine has been in our focus for several years now. This year, we have amazing, excellent films that stand out, not just because of their heavy topic but their genuinely outstanding qualities. For example, Intercepted or Songs of a Slow Burning Earth are films that I recommend. The director of Flowers of Ukraine will also come to present the movie. This film was not initially about the war but about gentrification. As she proceeded to film, the war broke out, and it was always in the background. In other words, you cannot make a film without excluding the bigger reality. These films also show personal stories of how war affects people’s everyday lives. In Intercepted, for example, we can listen to the phone calls of Russian soldiers, which were – as the title suggests – intercepted by the secret services in Ukraine. It is chilly to listen while you watch pictures of destroyed cities and the actual effects of their actions.
The Armenian focus this year was not initially planned, but we decided to have it because we found these powerful films coming out of Armenia. 1489 is the title of one of the films that also won the Best Film award at the International Documentary Festival in Amsterdam last November. One particularity of this movie is that the director was filming with her phone. As mentioned, there are still films that were initially not intended to be a movie but just started to document an event. Later on, they decided to make it a movie. In this context, this director chose to film her own family. The story focuses on her brother, who disappeared in the Nagorno-Karabakh war. Together with her father, they are trying to find him. This is a profound and personal story. The director, Shoghakat Vardanyan, is also coming to the festival.
The British focus might come as a surprise. The reason for this focus is Brexit, which has caused less attention to British documentaries at European festivals in the last few years. We also wanted to cooperate with the British Council in Budapest and the British Embassy because we felt that there is less money now in the soft power of Britain to promote their culture in this part of the world. British cultural products are not as present as they used to be. We wanted to show a selection of recent British documentaries and found four feature lengths.
We also have a VR section called Vektor VR. The exhibition is at Adaptér, a lovely communal space run by the local municipality, where you can sit down and watch VR documentaries. This year, the representation of the body is the focus, particularly how we experience our body in virtual reality and how it helps us understand how others might feel in their body.
AM: You have a broad variety of movies, and my curiosity is: how do you select the movies? What kind of balance do you aim at between artistic merit and the urgency of the issues addressed?
EG: We are trying to find the films that excel in this balance. Both these points are essential aspects of the selection. We work as a team; we watch all the films together and then discuss them. The discussions were exciting, particularly on our different perceptions of the movies. Naturally, debates occurred in some cases, but we could all convince each other in the end, even when there was a disagreement. When programming a film, you share your first impression, which is an emotional response. Only then you go into the discussion and ask the question why? Then you can find the artistic beauty. This aesthetic line is essential, but the perspective of our audience also matters. We know our audience well and see every year which topics are interesting for them, what they vote for, what news they follow, and what their main concerns are in the respective year- elements which come into consideration too.
We also want to show the geographic diversity. We cover films from all continents, and we want to show especially films from the Eastern European region. It is nice to see Polish, Romanian, Slovakian, and Slovenian films coming out. This region is considered a low-production capacity region, with fewer funding opportunities than France or Italy. Therefore, we are proud to show these films, hoping they will help them reach a more international audience. As well, through our partnerships with the Doc Around Europe Network, where we are partners with these Western European festivals, we hope to promote Eastern European talents more.
AM: Verzió also hosts cultural events and educational programs alongside its film screenings. Could you tell me more about these programs and how they aim to contribute to the discussions on resisting illiberalism and protecting human rights, particularly in Hungary? How do you aim to reach younger audiences, and in what ways do you hope to educate and shape them?
EG: The student version screenings for high school students run from its first festival edition. During the mornings of the festival, in the cinemas, the teachers can bring their students to the cinema to watch a film selected primarily for their age group. Then, our expert moderators talk with them. The discussion focuses on improving their analytical skills or thinking more profoundly about the film. In a way, it is media education and a film literacy education program.
We also cooperate with some universities, such as the ELTE Film and Media departments. Two professors run courses in the autumn semester focusing on our program’s documentaries. The students can watch the films from the Verzió program, write reviews, and publish them on our blog. Some students can also do the Q&A sessions as moderators, which usually requires some preparation, but our professors in this partnership are doing a fantastic job, and the result is always amazing.
They can also do online interviews with the directors; thus, this experience provides them with practical experience that they can enjoy. With METU, Metropolitan University, there is cooperation with the Graphic Design Department. The students choose one film and design an alternative film poster, which is then exhibited during the festival. This year’s exhibition will take place in the gallery of the Polish Institute.
Finally, as mentioned, there will be a lot of debates and roundtables- not only with civil organizations, academics, journalists, and documentary professionals- at the CEU in Budapest. VerzióDocPro brings directors who give masterclasses. This year, we will focus on topics such as the ethical dilemmas of filmmakers who work with sensitive subjects. This is a European effort to help those filmmakers who operate in anti-democratic countries.
Finally, the festival tries to be a platform for discussion and sharing thoughts and ideas. Because of these filmmakers, we have gained personal and credible knowledge. They are the best source of truthful information in many ways because they sometimes work with a story for years, even decades. They become the best expert in specific topics. They do not have to have a degree in sociology, for example, to understand a situation that they are highly knowledgeable about.
Verzió International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival will take place between the 6th and 13th of November 2024 in Budapest.
The conversation was recorded by Adrian-George Matus, Lilit Hakobyan edited the audio file.
