Photographs by filmmakers? What could be the point in exhibiting a filmmaker’s photographs? Motion picture is in fact a series of sequential still images, making the aesthetic of a film image similar to the aesthetic of a photograph. It is the enigmatic term “similar” that points to the difference, indicating that a film is very much not a photograph: it is in essence motion, allowing for a continuous change in the formal characteristics of constituting still images. Filmmakers must therefore possess a very different vision and artistic approach from photographers indeed. Their photographs are specific exactly because of this „similarity”: they are on the borderline of photo and film, materialising as a photograph, yet being in the magnetic field of cinema.
The first photographer-filmmakers coming to our mind are precisely those who have left us in recent years: István Gaál, Ferenc Kósa, Sándor Sára and Vilmos Zsigmond. The present compilation has of course also made selections from his, by now, classic works. In addition, we wanted to present their predecessors: the photographs of filmmakers who often started out as photographers in the silent or early sound film era, then shifted to the new medium for a while or for long. Regarding contemporary filmmakers, we have addressed the entire professional community, meaning not only directors of photography or film directors but all professionals working in any branch of filmmaking, and asked them to send us their artworks. This exhibition displays in close proximity photographs by various filmmakers who work with a high diversity of film types, genres and styles: each and every image is an independent creative world, a visual idea.
Curator: Gábor Gelencsér
Assistant curator: Dóra Dekovics