-> SOUNDS QUEER

Dan Dansen was born in Freiburg/Breisgau, Germany in 1982. He majored in Cultural Studies and in German Literature at Humboldt University Berlin in 2014 (Magister Artium). The documentary Sounds Queer (directed as Dan Bahl) is part of his Master’s Thesis in Cultural Studies and premiered at DOK.fest Munich (Germany). Dan Dansen has studied “Arts and Media” at the University of the Arts in Berlin since 2014, choosing to set his main focus on flm: He attends the class of Thomas Arslan in order to explore the possibilities of narrative flm.

->GALACTIC JACKSON

Dani Tot is a photographer and filmmaker. He was born in Hungary and now lives and works in London. He’s known for his honest portraiture of social tribes and his colourful style. Dani has documented the places he’s been and the people he’s been around throughout his career, from the community in Dunapataj to the squatting scene in London.

His Tumblr and video blog Budapest Pretty Cool reveal a view of the Hungarian capital beyond usual clichés. The short Galactic Jackson was produced for Budapest Pretty Cool.

->HUDOBNICI: LADISLAV KUPKOVIC

György Kristóf was born in Slovakia in 1982. During his studies at FAMU he shot documentaries for Czech and Slovak TV. Currently he is finishing his first feature film OUT.

-> EAST PUNK MEMORIES

After studying at the Arts Décoratifs in Paris and in several music schools, Lucile Chaufour took part in the 1990s in the development of the internal television network of the Maison d’Arrêt de la Santé and animated a video workshop in a psychiatric hospital in Paris. She’s played in numerous jazz and rock bands, among them Primitiv Combo, Duck & Cover, Trottel, Sayag Jazz Machine… She funded the record label Makhno Records, which enabled several punk bands forbidden to play in communist Hungary –their home country to broadcast their music. At the same time, she proposed with the record label Le Cri du Tamarin a compilation of unreleased videos from the French alternative scene of the 1990s. She also works as a screenwriter for Casterman editions. In 2008, her first short-film L’Amertume du chocolat (The Bitter Taste Of Chocolate) was selected by ACID at the CANNES FILM FESTIVAL. In 2009, her first feature film Violent Days, Grand Prix of the French feature film in the ENTREVUES BELFORT, was released. In 2012, her first documentary East Punk Memories won the youth price at Cinéma du Réel, Paris. In 2014, Leone, Mère & fils (Leone, mother & son) won Grand Prix VyG Competition at BAFICI, Argentina. In 2015, she co-directed with Bernhard Braunstein two experimental films Blues and Sleeping image presented as an installation at FID Marseille. She is currently a feature film screenplay, Gas Gas, which takes place in the motorcycle racing world.

->HUDOBNICI: MARTIN BURLAS

Marek Sulík (1974) is a Slovak director of documentaries and film editor. At present he is working also as the lecturer of the documentary film at Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts in Bratislava.

-> ORBÁN NÉPE

Máté Szilágyi is a filmmaker based in Budapest, Hungary. He studied film theory, now he is a graduate student of the University of Theater and Film – Television department. Orbán Népe was one of his documentary directing exam projects.

-> BEOGRAD UNDERGROUND

Muriel Buzarra has a Ph.D. in communication sciences, specializing in creativity process analysis. He is a member of the audio-visual creation and research collective Trayectos.org. He started his career as a theatre director and was a founding member of several cultural projects including the Casa Invisible. Now living on the Barcelona coast, he has been working from the educational perspective, donating resources for social groups in need in the form of “media self defence”. Nowadays he is involved in the European underground art documentation process with documentaries like (On the Quest for) Beograd Underground (2012) or the most recent On Crack! (2015) about the biggest D.I.Y. art festival in Europe. (On the Quest for) Belgrade Underground is the first feature film that he did as a director. He has also directed several short documentaries and pieces of video art.

-> 31 ENDINGS / 31 BEGINNINGS

RAFANI is an artist-group operating mainly within the context of Czech Republic. It was founded in Prague in 2000 as an open, democratic and collective structure for artistic action within the society. Members come and go within the years, but a strong spirit of collective artistic responsibility in relationship to the society remains present. Notable about RAFANI’s ‘hardcore‘ group of young (angry) men – women are very welcome to join also – was their awareness of history combined with very actual artistic actions. Their relationship to historical events (recent as well as houndreds of years old) is serious but never didactic. They succeed in bringing the historical context into the present situation in a relevant and efficient way. Another interesting part of their work is that they accompany their actions with a public statement or a manifesto…

-> NOTHING ESSENTIAL HAPPENS IN THE ABSENCE OF NOISE

Silvia Biagioni is a London based video editor and filmmaker. Focused on broadcast and online production, participatory documentaries, mixed formats, and archive footage research, SilBia has edited docs for BBC, Vice News, and ARTE, as well as projects for world leading non-profit organisations. Her first documentary Nothing Essential Happens in the Absence of Noise was released in 2015 and has been screened in several film festivals across Europe.

-> BALTA ALBA

Silviu Munteanu is a Romanian filmmaker and journalist. Balta Alba is his feature debut.

-> DREAM IMAGES

Sorin Luca is a Romanian filmmaker. His feature documentary debut Dream Images was nominated for Best Film in the Romanian Days section of the Transsilvania International Film Festival in 2016.

Director’s Statement: Discovering Rodion’s music

I knew that at the start of the ‘80’s, Rodion was famous for his music. But I hadn’t listened to it before I came to him. I couldn’t find any information, any reference to him, any recording.

5 years before, Rodion had moved to the countryside: the house was sort of an under construction laboratory. A construction site on four levels, all stacked with various objects that Rodion would continuously organize. He did the same with the garden, the dogs and all that was left there. As he rightly said, we were in his little empire. From his “imperial” attic, Rodion brought down a few dusty tapes. This is how I first listened to Rodion G.A. I will never forget the impact his music had on me. This man had really made music. Electrifying. Present. What prompted me to make the film? His music. The fact that he never gave up believing in it. His spirit, better said, the energy he spread everywhere. And my desire to know and thoroughly understand a man that is truly free. I started by wanting to find out the reason for his obscurity. I ended up experiencing every second the dream images. A Rodion trademark.

-> 15 CORNERS OF THE WORLD

Born in 1978, Zuzanna Solakiewicz graduated in humanities from the University of Warsaw and studied film directing at the Sam Spiegel Film & TV School in Jerusalem. Her shorts and documentaries have been successfully presented in many international film festivals. Her work includes KABARET POLSKA (2008), YORZEIT (2012) and 15 CORNERS OF THE WORLD (2014). She was also invited to participate in Berlinale Talents in 2015.