András Szirtes
András Szirtes (1951 – 2023) was a Hungarian film director, cinematographer, editor, actor, writer, poet, and musician, and one of the distinctive figures of Hungarian experimental and avant-garde cinema. He was born in Budapest and died at the age of 72. His filmmaking was intensely personal and difficult to categorize. He worked between experimental cinema, documentary, fiction, autobiography, and diary film, often incorporating his own body and everyday life into his films. His long-running Napló (Diaries) project, begun in the 1970s, is considered a central work of his career. Among his best-known films are Hajnal (Allegro), Lenz, Forradalom után (After the Revolution), Sade márki élete (The Life of Marquis de Sade), A lélek súlya (The Weight of the Soul), and Juliette. Hajnal, made over several years, explores factory workers and the possibilities of resistance and is regarded as one of his major experimental works. His work was closely associated with the Béla Balázs Studio (BBS), an important center of Hungarian experimental filmmaking. He is remembered as a highly individual, uncompromising filmmaker whose films occupy a unique place in Hungarian cinema, particularly its avant-garde tradition.