Actor-director Szabolcs Hajdu, 27 years old. He debuted at the beginning of the 90's in the films of János Rózsa (Brats, Goodnight, Prince! for the latter he received Best Actor's Award at the International Film Festival in Dijon.) He studied three years at the director's faculty of the Academy for Dramatic and Film Arts. His diploma film of 1997, Necropolis received the first prize of Mediawave and the Film Ciritics' Award (Best First Film, 1999). His latest work, Kicsimarapagoda is part of the film school diploma-film series based on Sándor Török's novel, Valaki kopog (Someone is Knocking) Szabolcs Hajdu has played parts in several Hungarian films in the past years (Espresso, The Morel Boy, Cross-roads).

What way lead you from Debrecen to Budapest, from theatre to film?

There was an important amateur theatre group in Debrecen, the Fonix Student Theatre. I started acting there, I can't remember whether I answered their ad or just got there somehow. This group has been lead by Attila Várhidi for decades, he came from Hajdúhadház where he worked with gypsy children. But from the young actor generation Attila Magyar and Mihály Szabados and the theatre director Iván Hargitai also came from his Debrecen workshop. First, we mainly played children's tales: Lúdas Matyi, Toldi, tales by Ervin Lázár, later we went over to stronger punk performances. We didn't solve tasks, but played - loosely, freely. Uncle Attila Várhidi always found the play or performance suiting the group. By the way he has just published a book titled Let's Play Theatre! It contains the descriptions of the performances, I can highly recommend it to everybody, it is bursting with playfulness. I would like to transcribe this playfulness, learned from him, into my own films. I came to Budapest after secondary school and went for a casting to János Rózsa, then after the leading role in Félálom there came some other feature films. In the meantime I got to know Csaba Bollók and I played in his short films as well. I really felt like trying filmmaking when I worked with him, that's where I realised the romantic nature of detailed work. Csaba gave me Super 8 films and I started shooting myself. Besides that I worked In Gábor Csetneki's Szárnyak Színháza, in Studio K and in the group of Erzsébet Gaál. Meanwhile I did my entrance exams at the director's faculty of the College. I was admitted and it quickly turned out that I couldn't do the two things together, so I quit regularly acting. Since then I have mainly played film roles, though this October I may play in Romania, at the theatre in Sepsiszentgyörgy.

You work with a steady team, in your short films and etudes we see the same faces...

I really work with the people I met in Debrecen, they play in each of my films. We have the same background, the city and its mentality, and of course our common past in the theatre. It's as if the twenty of us were siblings. There are three generations in the team, the first being in their thirties, the second is ua, in our mid-twenties and the third around twenty. I work with people who haven't become actors, they all have their jobs, but they are passionate about acting. We sometimes get together and do things, I collect them for my films. Recently we have started becoming popular, we are invited here and there, we may all work in the new film by Jancsó. Two are already working in Studio K, lead by Tamás Fodor...I met my director of photography, Mátyás Erdély at the entrance exams. At the last exam each director had to choose a director of photography. We didn't know each other, he was sitting beside me, so I asked him and he said yes - since then we have made all of our films together, except for one documentary. But other members of the crew are steady ones, too, from the actors to the make-up artist. We are almost like family. I am suspicious with strangers because I don't know them and I always get my ideas from people. I have known these people for a long time, both as actors and as persons. This is not only safer, but also more eciting, more interesting this way. However, I keep bringing one or two nice new people and try to get them involved gradually - after all, you need refreshing. Of course this technique works much better in the theatre, because on a shooting not all the actors meet each other. I try to have every actor and crew member there for the whole shooting. I am not afraid or suspicious of professional actors. I just don't know them. I have to make friends with them in order to be able to work together. This is of course a matter of character. If I look around and see my people, I have to feel very comfortable. From this point of view I'm quite sensitive.

You have emphasised several times how important it is for you to have the team together for longer than one single project.

I have tried to push through a fund or scholarship, because I would like to grant salaries, secure background for these people, so that we could have time for collecting and elaborating stories. First we would create a script, based on real experiences. So we would need team work before the shooting, because during production you simply don't have time for that, you cannot go deep into the experiences then. Intensive preparational and rehearsal process is also important to give the material enough dimensions, enough depth. Of course you can manage that with a preparational budget, but it's not the same as having a place where you can deal with acting training, script writing or music...

What have you accomplished from that already?

Nothing really. I wrote the scripts at home, hidden away, normally for deadlines. The people got to know the details days before shooting...This may not be bad, though, because improvisation can make things more real. The shooting of my first two films unfortunately turned into rushing and compromises. We could realise twenty percent of the scripts, but we could also elaborate only fragments of the original ideas.

In emphasising preparation, theatrical rehearsals do you mean ideally not to use improvisation at the shooting?

In some particular cases we would, but only in comparison with a definite idea. You need something to refresh work, I would definitely like to avoid dictating some pre-determined thing. You need refreshing during work. But it's much better to improvise according to an idea.

Do you mean situational excercises, improvisations that the audience could see in the etudes or video documentaries at Szindbád Cinema at the Young Filmmakers' Forum?

Yes, tiny littel stories, weeny situational excercises, the more the better. We could do one every day and we could also show them, others might be interested to see them.

You said that you make up the films for the characters of the members of the team. How does this adaptation work, for example in the case of Kicsimarapagoda?

I had to take the whole short story into pieces and remodel it for myself and the company. I had to cut out the old women's parts, because I have no old women in my company. As a new member we got Roland Rába, who quickly integrated into the team. Kicsimara was mainly based on the first generation of the team, Necropolis on the younger ones. Now we are planning a feature, which would give opportunities for the whole group. I have at least twenty films, twenty topics, stories circling around in my head. All of them should be made. These are all stories that happened to us or around us. Generally they are not big stories. I have realised that for me a great story takes place within two days. A day, a night and another day. All of my experiences are events of two days, this is how much time it takes for everything to happen. Thinking back, Necropolis is also such a story. These are simple, everyday things. The story is not really detectable, the time limit gives it a backbone: what happens in two days. It happens here - with him, her and him. The story of an excursion, the story of a festival...

You have mentioned the definitive power of common experiences. Would you like to make films based mainly on your experiences?

I don't see any other way now. I would like to talk to people about what I'm affected by. Of course you have to concentrate, filter these experiences, these tried out things, but basically they remain simple little stories. During work, a lot of madness, absurdity might come in, though. I particularly like films and stories, where things turn absurd. Everything is motivated, the story explains absurdity, but still, the whole thing seems like a tale. Everything could happen, but still it's unbelievable.

Necropolis and Kicsimarapagoda are closed, rounded films, the plots, however, are decentralised, they have several focal points and leading figures...

I try to give personal opportunities to each character in the film. To present personalities, people, not masses, faceless figures and vague characters. This makes everybody a leading actor. People from the background, with possibly no lines at all, for a moment get to the centre of attention. Another thing is that the real main protagonist has to have lots of secrets. We have to be able to imagine anything about the central character from the beginning of the film right to the very end. This character will kill in the next moment, or hang himself - anything could happen...I wouldn't like to tell anything about him, that would make his personality too deterimed. This was one of the besic principles in Necropolis. I have known Domokos Szabó, the leading actor for fifteen years, still, I don't know anything about him.

One cannot but notice how fragmentary the dialogues of your films are, and how little emphasis you put on them. This could of course be caused by inexperience, but it could also be a very conscious thing.

I try to avoid very clever dialogues. As soon as I start writing such a thing, I immediately feel it extremely false. I don't try to imitate reality, I don't find these dialogues false because people don't speak that way. There are a lot of stylised features in my films, I never aim at realism. The dialogues are rather soliloquies in my films. One character speaks and the other listens. A personality comments on somenthing and the other reacts. The dialogue is not witty, that's very rare with me, rather it tends towards one of the characters. But often the action goes forth without any dialogue. I find speaking a very misty feature in a film.

In Kicsimara you use dialogues almost as musical elements...

There is almost no silence in that one. There are a few seconds of intermissions, but just like the picture, music and text is an intertwining composition. You can't really cut it, it strives constantly upwards. You had to somehow accompany the constant movement of the camera. By the way, during script writing I always listen to lots of music in different styles. This starts my thoughts and vision. I like the films to be dense and rich.

When I arrived you were watching screen tests. So you are preparing for a new film. Can tell me something about that?

Two years ago I wrote a short story titled Macerás ügyek (Fussy Business - the editor). It is a complicated love story of a young guy. At that time the story was about two years of his life. I worked a lot on it and finally concentrated it for two days. The great love takes place in two days. Three movements - approaching the girl, keeping her and losing her. The man is in the centre, he is there all the time, everything happens to him. It's going to be the story of two long and eventful days. Maybe surreally many things will happen in those two days, but I think there are such days. It's going to be a film based on constant movement, values turning into each other permanently. It will take place in unceasing fever, and it will end similarly. Progress and shifting, the way from one scene to the other, is very important in my films. I like using passages, because the movement of the actors can support the story and the characters in a very special way. The backbone of the new film will also be the presence of passages. The scenes will be distributed in emphatic bridges. Being alone in different spaces - this is important and also says a lot, since people's lives are made up of such ways around. In style, it will be a merger of the two previous films, as if I was mixing the two...

A merger of the exaggerated stylism of Kicsimara and the rough naturality of Necropolis?

As if you were watching Necropolis: it is completely real, but the realistic events suddenly turn into absurdity, stylism. They are everyday absurdities, as in Kicsimara. The clothings change...Everything is credible and suddenly you see a completely stylised image. But you only notice that later. Putting it boldly: it will be a love adventure story for young people spiced with image poetry.