person

1946 – 1985

Hungary

http://https://bodygabor.hu/

Born in Budapest. Studied philosophy and history at the Eötvös Lóránd University (ELTE), Budapest (1964/71), thesis title: ’The Investigation into the meaning structures of film: The attribution of film making.’ Even as a student, he writes screen plays and participates in filmmaking (‘Agitators’, 1969, directed by Dezső Magyar). His makes his debut in 1971 (‘The Third’), at which point he becomes a member of the Béla Balázs Studio (BBS). He studies film and stage directing at the Academy of Theatre and Film from 1971 to 1975. He gives his first lectures on ’Film as a Language‘ in 1972 (later he lectures on this topic at ELTE in Budapest and Kossuth Lajos University in Debrecen). In 1973, he organizes the ‘on ‘Film Language Series’ at the BBS, for which he invites visual artists, musicians, and wrtiers. It is in the framework of this projejct that he shoots the ’Four Bagatelles’ (DP László Vidovszky, composer), which is then also shown in Amsterdam (1979) and Geneva (1980). His thesis film ‘American Torso’ (1976) wins the Grand Prize for best new filmmaker at the 25th International Film Festival Mannheim-Heidelberg and afterwards the Hungarian Film Critics prize for best first film. In 1978, he is invited to give a lecture at the Edinburgh Film Festival with the title ’Total Expanded Cinema.’ (‘Infinite Image and Reflection,’ on which the Edinburgh lecture was based, had already been presented at the 1973 Semiotics Conference in Tihany.) His film Narcissus and Psyche (1980) wins numerous prizes (special prize at the Hungarian Feature Film Festival, 1981; Cannes, Quinzaine des Réalisateurs; Locarno, Bronze Leopard; Figuera da Foz, CIDALC prize). In 1980, he initiates the first international video magazine INFERMENTAL (10+1 volumes). He holds seminars at the German Film and Television Academy Berlin (DFFB, 1982, 1983, 1985). He has a retrospective exhibition at the DAAD Gallery, Berlin in 1983. Following his early death (1985), his work is recognized by numerous awards and his oeuvre is presented at various festivals. In addition to the above mentioned achievements, he also made television dramas (‘Chalk Circle’, 1978), so called ’document analysis‘ (‘Private History’, 1978), and video works in various genres (‘Der Dämon in Berlin’, 1982; ‘De occulta philosophia’, 1983). (2011)