Biography

Lives in Budapest's downtown. He hates traffic jams and uses public transport.

In 2002, despite his maximum score at the entrance examinations, he wasn't accepted at the University of Theatre and Film in Hungary. By that time, he had already won 15 international awards and film-maker/professor Péter Gothár felt there was nothing left he could teach him.

His older brother is an expert on human rights, the younger one is a bassoon player and teacher.

He is crazy about snails, mushrooms, and whales.

Member of the 'Official Competition' jury at the 15th Sarajevo International Film Festival in 2009.

I was a very difficult kid. I hated school and skipped home at 14. I was a real deviant. I thought nothing will ever become of me.

The first completed project of my own was the short film Beszélö fejek (2001)... that film already contained everything I would like to deal with over the next decade.

I really like symmetrical forms. I'm always excited by a work that's perfectly symmetrical or has a fractal quality. It means that the smallest part is just like the largest.[2014]

If you watch my films, they are all very different. Maybe the core is the same, but the surface and even most of what lies underneath it is very diverse. After Dealer (2004), everybody wanted me to continue making gloomy and hypnotic films in abandoned factories. When I made Womb (2010), the same thing happened. If I have something forcing me to go in one direction, I usually try to go in the opposite direction.[2013]

[on Forest (2003)] It was very low budget. The actors were friends of mine. The audiences think that the actors are professionals. "Forest" has been compared to The Celebration (1998) but "Festen" was made with professional actors whereas "Forest" was not. They are normal people who were from my surroundings. With non actors I cast very close to the character but I had to change my attitude for using professional actors, where I work with someone who can pretend to be this character. I am a little nervous about this process but I respect the actors and the actresses. I was in a very hard situation when I started to make films. I was a self-made man and I had not been to university. I wasn't professional. I had been working as a first assistant director before I made my first film. The film community was very difficult to get into and so my position was not so good to make my first film and so I had to use non-actors. But I always want to learn something new. When I finished "Forest" they said to me that I should make more Dogme movies because I am the only one making these films [in Hungary]. But I said no; I want to work with professional actors. It is a lesson. When I finished Dealer (2004), which people think is in between Béla Tarr, Roy Andersson and Andrei Tarkovsky with these very long shots and lots of doom and gloom, they said to me, this is very unique. You are the new Bela Tarr. I said, no way, I would like to do something else - Milky Way (2007) - and now I am doing something totally new with this film also. I am a student of film.[2008]