A streetwise Budapest ladie’s man gets caught up in the whirlwind of history. After all, what’s a Revolution without a little copulation?

The screenplay of 1989 is based on a novel of mine with similar title published in December 2009. Circular structure starting on January 1 ending on December 31. It gives an account of the end of the Cold War and the birth of open societies in the Eastern Bloc without backwards moralizing. The screenplay follows a clear chronological line to make it simple to understand the complex and multifold set of historic events.

The storyline of Daniel’s book follows a young sociologist bumping up and down through the political events of the year getting tons of experience from a dissident point of view. The storyline of Bitter Romance of the Secret Service reveals the perspectives of a Hungarian intelligence officer, a certain Kálmán Bakos. The Spye Novel peeps into the actions of three foreign intelligence officers, how they see the changes, what challenges they face. There is an animated block on big politics, a bit surreal, though.

Daniel, a marginal intellectual (Konrád-Szelényi), “Sozialfreischwebende Intellektuel” (Karl Mannheim), does some sociology field work, has a girlfriend, but always has someone on the side. He makes sociological interviews, gets proactive in dissident and opposition organizations, writes articles, travels around the seven seas. Starts a bit naive then gets somewhat disillusioned. He is invited by the British Government, then manages the press during the reburial of Imre Nagy, first, goes to Israel, then flies to Berlin on August 11. He meets the East German refugees in a churchyard, and protesters drive his car in Prague to free the hunger strikers. Then he founds a paper. We learn details from a classified file. Then he hops from Paris, through Berlin, Prague, Washington to Timisoara.

The spies spy, the agents surge and the new world order follows a non-existing scenario, a whole lot of funny chaos by the end. An American agent wants to get a traitor expelled from Hungary, while his Russian counterpart tries to help the same traitor to escape; the Mossad agent prepares Hungary for a safe passage for Soviet Jews. The agents are mingled throughout the whole story. By the end of the film, the Cold War is over, Nicolae Ceausescu is executed in a haste.

Writer, scriptwriter, producer

Graduated from Hungarian Academy of Sciences and University of Essex (Sociology) and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Nieman fellow (Visual Environmental Studies).
Professional History (selected)
2010 theatrical release of Kolorádó Kid (feature film)
2009 publishing 1989, a novel. Guest professor at the University of Theatrical and Filmic Arts, Budapest
2005-09 writing & directong Kolorádó Kid (feature film)
2003-04 Creative producer, TV Sziget cultural television series, Hungarian Public TV
2002- assistant to director Miklós Jancsó, in his feature film Kelj fel komám!
1999 Producer of Tarr Béla’s award winning Werckmeister Harmonies. 1998 Producer of Esti Gyors, a social-cultural series. TV2 commercial channel, Budapest.