My father was called Csakó. He lived his life as an embittered man. Ever since I can remember he had been forging swords and arrowheads.
I remember him as a corpulent man of clumsy movements. Whenever I recall his figure, every time I see a sweaty-faced giant bending above the anvil from morning till night.
My father had a great flaw.
He hammered probably all the flexibility there was in him into the swords and sabers that left his hands one after another. Maybe this was the reason why he remained unyielding and stubborn until we had met again.
He did not achieve much; he went to battle only once…
You asked me, my old friend, to count the dates from the year when the Crucified had been born as this would make it truly clear to you when the remarkable events had taken place…
Well, my father accompanied high king Balamber to his campaign against the Ostrogoths when he was barely eighteen years old in the 374th year after the birth of the Carpenter’s Son.
They made the horses swam across the Don and entered the Crimean Peninsula through the strait of Kerchi. They won. And not just anyhow. They gained such a glorious victory over the Goths that their king, the proud Ermanaric had the face to fall on his sword. It is said that this in vogue in Rome…
My father reckoned he would return home from the war as a rich man, owner of twenty horses. But the god of the Huns decided that another fate would await him: he made my father lame and sent him back to his homeland in that state – my father could never again straighten his left leg because of an unfortunate spear-thrust.
The Lord of Heavens arranged thus that Csakó, son of Uzgon would remain a master blacksmith forever.
However, all the hope that was taken away from him in the Crimea was returned to him abundantly as a talent in his work at the bellows. My father forged fine swords; half of the world marveled at them.
Also a long-braided Hun girl admired him. She was called Rika.
She was loitering and posing in front of the door of the smithy day by day. She seized every opportunity to engage the handsome man in a chat.
In his novel „Scourge of God” Tibor Fonyódi tells the story of Torda the taltosh and his protégée, the greatest chieftain of Huns, Attila. The story is told by Torda who starts his story in the residence of the Hun kings and he continues in Transylvania. After the young Torda learn from an old taltosh how to use his enigmatic abilities he travels to the direction of the sunset to the area of Pilis in the Carpathian Basin. He meets there with the young Attila and goes into the service of the young… Many years later in the shadows of Attila Torda is weaving the strings of the history; the story is focusing around the legendary sword of Attila, and we can learn how a young child to the greatest conqueror of Europe became. In the background of the memoirs of Torda Tibor Fonyódi glimmers the decadent last days of the Roman Empire, the political effort to merge again the broken empire which fails.
The novel first published by Kalandor Publisher in Hungary in 2002. In 2005 it was published in French by Pygmalion under the title „Le Chamane d’Attila”.
After the movie’s post-production ended in Germany the producers organized the first test-screening in Budapest at the Mafilm Studios. The Hungarian producer and distributor were satisfied with the positive reaction of the audience. The distributor said the Hungarian premier will be 2 month later than expected earlier; we will inform you in this website. The movie will be screened next time in Cannes, in the Market Screenings section of the festival.
Mon père s’appelait Csakó. Il fabriquait des épées et des flèches. C’était un homme aigri.
Je me souviens de lui comme d’un homme corpulent aux mouvements lents. Quand je me remémore sa silhouette, je vois un géant au visage trempé de sueur penché du matin au soir sur son enclume. Il avait un gros défaut. Toute la souplesse qu’il avait en lui, il la transmettait à coups de marteau aux épées et aux sabres qui sortaient de ses mains. C’est sans doute pour cela qu’il fut toute sa vie un être inflexible et obstiné, du moins jusqu’à nos retrouvailles.
Cela expliquait aussi pourquoi il n’était jamais arivé à grandchose, n’ayant d’ailleurs participé qu’à une seule bataille.
Dans mon récit, j’indique les dates à partir de la fondation de la Ville, ainsi tu pourras aisément situer les événements.
En l’an 1127, à l’âge de dix-huit ans à peine, mon père avait accompagné le roi Balamber dans sa campagne contre les Ostrogoths. Après avoir traversé le Don sans descendre de leurs montures, ils passèrent par le détroit de Kertch et pénétrèrent dans la presqu’île de Crimée. Ils remportèrent la bataille. Et quelle victoire ce fut! Au point que le roi des Goths, le fier Ermanric, se donna la mort sans hésiter en se jetant sur son propre sabre. On dit que c’était là une coutume romaine…
Mon père espérait revenir de la guerre riche, propriétaire de vingt chevaux. Mais le Dieu des Huns en décida autrement. Il le rendit infirme et c’est ainsi qu’il le renvoya dans son pays natal. Mon père ne pouvait plus tendre complètement sa jambe gauche à cause d’une blessure de lance. Le Seigneur des Cieux obligeait Csakó, fils d’Uzgon, à demeurer forgeron pour le reste de ses jours. Mais les espoirs qu’il lui avait enlevés en Crimée, il les lui restitua au centuple sous forme d’habileté auprès du soufflet: ses excellentes épées lui valurent l’admiration générale.
Une jeune Hunne aux longues nattes était aussi tombée d’admiration devant lui. Elle s’appelait Rika.
Elle venait musarder jour après jour dans les environs et minauder devant la porte du forgeron. Elle profitait de chaque occasion pour engager la conversation avec cet homme de belle prestance.
Production: GRANTFILM LTD, Hungary
Producer: Dr. Endre Nagy
Writer: John Crome, Tibor Fonyódi, John Arany
Cast: international cast
Genre: feature, drama
Length: 100 minute
Format: 35 mm
Language: English
Shooting: 2006 in Hungary
Synopsis:
János Arany is the most prominent figure in Hungarian epic poetry. He lived and worked in the 19th century, and left a major oeuvre. He has the largest vocabulary of any Hungarian author. His Toldi – which is without doubt one of the greatest works of Hungarian literature – has lost nothing of its original value today. Arany translated Shakespeare’s Hamlet into Hungarian.
Toldi is set in Hungary in the second half of the 14th century in the reign of the legendary royal knight Louis the Great. The hero of the epic poem, Miklós Toldi, was a famous knight of the times, whose heroic deeds were much chronicled in verse.
Arany’s Toldi is a trilogy: Toldi, Toldi ‘s Love and Toldi’s Eve. The film rolls the three parts into one, with Toldi’s old age (Toldi’s Eve) forming the basic time frame and events from his life (mainly from Toldi, the first part of the trilogy, and to a lesser extent from Toldi’s Love) appearing as flashbacks.
Toldi has been translated into several languages, including English in 1913.
Of Single Mind
Production: GRANTFILM LTD, Hungary
Producer: Dr. Endre Nagy
Writer: Tibor Fonyódi
Cast: international cast
Genre: feature, drama
Length: 95 minute
Format: 35 mm
Language: English
Shooting: 2006 in Hungary
Do we know Béla Bartók? Do we know this artist of significance in the history of universal culture who worked amidst the tragic events of the twentieth century and created something of eternal value?
In the screenplay we show Bartók’s last days in Budapest and his life in New York, making use of documentary sources for the sake of authenticity. Yet our story is not a biography, but the presentation of the Calvary of a colossal personality expressed through the figure of the Maestro. The frame for this structure is provided by a childhood friendship, a relationship which in an ambivalent way follows the course of the Maestro’s emigration.
Following a long and painful period of deliberation, Bartók decides to emigrate, pondering with uncertainty and profound pain on the possibility of returning. However, deep within himself he knows that it is hopeless… his homeland was destined to be dominated by dictatorships, German and then Russian.
[*]The Maestro does not wish to be estranged from Hungary but from his moral conviction and belief he feels, knows and decides that returning is impossible.
It is not his life’s story but fate that we wish to show.
We wish to present a story of human dignity, moral standing and strength as an example for the people of the new millennium.
In the description and later in the film sentences are often uttered by the character of the Maestro that can be accurately traced to written records or sound recordings in Bartók’s legacy. (!)
We wish to convey the “moment” or “series of moments” which makes Bartók’s internal and external emigration, i.e. his unwillingness to collaborate with any dictatorial power, clear to today’s audience.
“Since Béla Bartók emerged, the romantic approach to artists and romantic biography of artists has been eclipsed. Whoever trod the path to hell and heaven with him, whoever lived through all the tribulations of the age with him and learnt from him to believe in the future would take little pleasure in artificially embellished literary imitations of true dramas from life. The powers forming our lives have made it clear that nothing can be more exciting than truth, the world of facts. ”
This is not a biographical film but a story inspired by real life.
Drawing “only from a pure source”, to quote Bartók himself, we should like to show the staggering power and universal truth of Bartók’s life’s work through the figure of the Maestro.
The way he wended, both personally and creatively, was a moral and intellectual Odyssey of modern times, the destiny of eternal man who despite the horrors of destruction wishes to preserve the human-divine values invested in him.
Our story tells of the passion burning in a withdrawn personality.
[*]“Making a portrait of Béla Bartók would be impossible without the inner need to go in quest of and to express the unstylized truth. He himself showed us a real example through his life and his life’s work, a real manifestation of truth and passionately strict objectivity, both universally and at each of its moments.”
Béla Balázs gave his article on Bartók the title Man of Single Mind.
We shall recount the last moments of this man of single mind, this revolutionary artist and academic with a diamond-hard nature.
Myths, half information and political bans have prevented us from getting to know his real fate and character until now.
Yet I am convinced that we ought to know who this man is, the man who could show in his life’s work the universality of culture, and its interdependent, organic continuity.
Through reconstructed scenes and available archive materials, in concert with a focus on the human face, we wish to show the audience the minute oscillations, the most harrowing moments and a few important and genuine episodes expressing the pain of decision.
Silences and the gestures of metacommunication create an extremely strong dramatic fabric through inner cuts and suggestive looks and faces. This can create a mental and emotional catharsis.
This may be the key to the film attracting a large audience.
The planned film is about a man – an authentic Hungarian artist of genuine, universal value even today, called Béla Bartók.
