Films

How does the process of film-making—like a huge carpet, of a 250 years saga of the Hungarian von Höfler family—render the chosen subject topical, re-liveable? And what is the topical signifier? is it merely a fleeting (a momentary) décollage — which is neither a piece of news, nor official history? And what  glance through (maybe the films and stories?) from the past of our protagonist, the young Tibor Höfler  projected into his future time (our present) by films, about the vortex called time?

The twists of a long life, the elegy of the last member of the great Pécs leather manufacturers. Recently researchers claim that Goethe modelled his famous Werther figure after an ancestor of Tibor Höfler: our film journey presents itself in time and space with this double twist. Not only Goethe's hero Werther is different from the real 18th-century Jakob von Höfler, but thus the threads of the Höfler saga intertwine in a double spiral of fate within the 20th century Central Europe's turmoil. The real and invisible images of the melancholic hero, Werther — a literary fate — cross cut with the real life protagonist von Höfler's life, his love, his family, his fate.

• Credits • Awards • Festivals

Director • Péter Forgács
Script • Péter Forgács
Home movies and photographs • Tibor Höfler
Video camera • Péter Forgács
Consultant to the director • András Forgách
English narration • Péter Forgács, Caroline Bodóczky, Miklós Bodóczky, George Majláth, Jane Pogson, Liz Szász, Eszter Szász
Music • Tibor Szemző, László Melis
Editor • Péter Sass
Sound • Zoltán Vadon, Tamás Zányi
Consultant • Bálint Forgács
Producer • Péter Forgács
Production and distribution company • For-Creation Bt. 2008

Supported by
Hungarian Motion Picture Foundation and Hungarian National Cultural Foundation

2008 • Creative Documentary Film Grand Prize • Hungarian Film Week • Budapest