Bio
Eszter Hajdú was born in Budapest in 1979. She completed her studies in Electronic Media (University of Szeged, Communications Department) and in Sociology (ELTE University of Budapest), and also completed a course of studies in Nationalism at the Central European University (Budapest). She studied in Stockholm, and received training in film-making in Italy and Romania. She took part of the courses of IDFA Festival in Amsterdam. She graduated at the University of Theatre and Film Arts, Budapest, at the moment she is doing her PHD as a filmdirector in Portugal.
She has worked continuously in journalism since the age of 18, as a reporter, editor and program director, in the print media, radio and television alike, while also working for film productions. In 2006, she worked with director Tamás Almási. In 2007, she was employed by Hungarian Television as a producer.
Meanwhile, Eszter has produced documentary films. Her documentary called "My Own Private, Tarnabod" depicts homeless families who were given a chance to start over in the village of Tarnabod, 120 km from Budapest. This film won first prizes at Hungarian and international film festivals in 2006.
Created in 2007, "Destino" – filmed in Sibiu (Nagyszeben), Romania - portrays a well-known Romanian poet, Luminita Cioaba, who is also the daughter of an influential Roma clan leader. This film was shown at several festivals, both in Hungary and internationally.
In Fall 2008, her controversial documentary was released: "The Fidesz Jew, the mother with no sense of nation and mediation". The film depicts society in Hungary after the 1989 change of regime, in which a polarized political atmosphere has caused major rifts between friends and even within families. The feuding parties turn to mediation techniques to try to achieve reconciliation. In reporting on this mediation process, the documentary displays the deepest feelings of individuals and shows how their deep-rooted political convictions are formed. The film, which deals with previously unexplored issues, is being shown continuously in Hungarian theaters, and early on was often sold out. For this film, Eszter won the Schiffer Pal award at the 40th Hungarian Film Festival, and the Special Prize of the Verzio International Documentary Film Festival.
In 2009, her socio-musical film "Lullaby" was shown, featuring Sándor Mester (also known as MS3), the most widely performing guitarist in Central Europe. In 2004, Mester decided he would bring classical music to places where it would otherwise not reach. He performs in small village bars, schools, day care centers, community centers and churches, and then chats with his audience. He believes that a stonemason or electrician is just as discerning an audience as the elite audience of an elegant concert hall. He held his 400th such concert in the Ady Endre High School in Bucharest, Romania, in Fall of 2008. Eszter Hajdú accompanied this tour with her crew, documenting a story about today's classical musician and about the fate of the peoples of Transylvania – without taboos. The documentary encompasses concerts, French baroque chamber music, Bartók for Kids, Renaissance lute music, Spanish Romantic music, and the Lullaby.
In 2009, Eszter Hajdú completed a short film portrait of László Végel, a prize-winning ethnic Hungarian writer from the multi-ethnic town of Novi Sad (Újvidék), Serbia, just over the border from Hungary. Eszter spends the day taking a walk through the writer's hometown. They visit his favorite places, such as the farmer's market; they take a look at where he used to work, the bombed-out building of the Novi Sad television station. Together, they travel to Temerin, a village where Vegel was in hiding, branded as an "enemy" by the Milosevic regime. Vegel was variously labeled "American spy", "Hungarian ultra-nationalist", "homeless bastard" by those who could not understand, or could not accept, this individual's commitment to personal liberty and to his European identity.
A film, Demon hands, finished in 2010, portrays the stressful, hypercompetitive lives of modern-day classical musicians. The film focuses on a disease called focal dystonia, "the musician's disease," which has afflicted tens of thousands of musicians worldwide – most famously, Robert Schumann - and which ruined the career of pianist Imre Antal. The film, shot in Budapest, Barcelona, Hannover and New York, interviews Hungarian and international musicians and physicians alike. The film is screened on festivals word-wide, for eg. in Spain, Qatar, Greece and South Africa.
Eszter is now working on another "musician" film as well, a highly personal documentary of the life of Tamás Barta, the founding guitarist of Hungary's seminal 1970's rock band LGT. The documentary also covers Barta's defection in 1974, and his death in Los Angeles in 1982. In addition to many musical sequences, the film features shocking documents that have been accessible only to Barta's legal heir (who is Judit Hajdú, Eszter Hajdú's mother).
Eszter Hajdu's documentary about Vivien had its premier in 2011. Vivien was born in a small, remote village in eastern Hungary; she has two siblings. Her Roma parents waited 15 years to conceive a child. Alongside their great joy came a great sorrow when they learned that one of the three babies, Vivien, was blind. When she was a small child, she often encouraged her mother: "Mama, don't cry, I can see well enough." In 2006 the family reached a turning point. Their happy family life came to an end when Vivien had to leave her village home for the city, to attend a school for the blind. The film covers ten years of the family. Eszter Hajdu and her crew continue to follow the life of Vivien and her family. Will such a dream come true for someone whose path is riddled with obstacles, placed there by fate and by society?
Eszter Hajdú's started to shoot her new film, Judgment in Hungary in 2011. Hungary was the site of serial murders by a criminal gang. Over the course of two years, the murderers killed Roma children and adults. Their aim was to victimize the Roma. The judicial hearings on this unprecedented and bloody series of murders were underway in Budapest.
The moment the date of the trial for the serial killing against Roma victims was announced, the documentary filmmaker Eszter Hajdu decided to document events as a memorial to the victims. It appeared, at the time, that the trial would be completed within a year, but instead it eventually went on for two and a half years.
Development began in November 2010, and filming commenced on the first day of the trial on March 25th 2011, and ended on August 6th 2013 - the day the final verdict was announced. Eszter Hajdu and her team were the only ones to document every single day of proceedings from beginning to end. As well as visiting various key locations, the film crew were present for all 167 days of the court trial, and so were able to make an exclusive documentary film of this unique court case.
This film traces the fate of three Roma families who trust the judicial system to give them closure. They believe that the murderers - who killed their child, their grandchild, their spouse, their sibling - will be punished. They trust that the Hungarian state will protect them. Will these families achieve what they seek? What will be the outcome of the marathon trial? "I spent 167 days in the company of accused murderers; an extensive group of Roma mourning the deaths of children, spouses and siblings; and an extraordinarily charismatic and passionate judge. Three years spent in this claustrophobic situation eventually enabled me to retell the dramatic story of a few individuals, and therefore the Roma community, through the documentary film that became known as Judgement in Hungary.”- Eszter Hajdu, the film's director.
The premiere of Judgment in Hungary was at the 26th IDFA (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam. Eszter Hajdu's film got a nomination at the 26th IDFA (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam) in the First Appearance Competition.
Awards: Trieste International Film Festival, Italy - Central European Initiative Award, 2014, One World Prague, Checz Republic, 2014 March BEST FILM AWARD, GoEast-Wiesbaden, Germany, 2014 April "Remembrance and Future” Best Documentary Award)
Eszter Hajdú makes films about persons and communities worth exploring, because their stories are a memorable experience and inspiration to others. She believes that coming to know and accept others is key to finding harmony within ourselves and with our world. She regularly focuses on people and groups who are excluded by their societies. By introducing us to individual lives and their dramas, her films in fact depict larger social issues. In addition, Eszter conducts sociological research and has, for example, written about Nobel Prize-winner Imre Kertész's reputation in Hungary, and about politically conservative Jews, who in Hungary are considered a curiosity. The latter essay, entitled "Rightest Jews, Against the Current" was published in English by German publisher VDM. Eszter currently lives and works in Portugal and Hungary.
Eszter Hajdú has worked with the following producers and companies in creating her films thus far:
PAX TV, Budapest (My Home, Tarnabod),
Dan Nutu, Aristoteles Workshop, Sibiu (Destino),
János Vészi, Fórum Film Alapítvány, Budapest (The Fidesz Jew, the Mother with no sense of nation, and Mediation; Demon hands;),
Sándor Mester Miradouro Kft.( Lullaby, Vivien. „Hurry home, your mama's waiting”)
Sándor Mester Miradouro Media Lda Portugal (The Jew with a Nazi-medal (in production), Judgment in Hungary)