Dear Festivalgoers and Colleagues,

We have a difficult year behind us, cinema exhibitors, filmmakers and festival organizers. With lots of changes and previous anxieties, when we submit this publication to press, we still do not know what will happen during the fourth wave of the pandemic. Will it wipe out the festival or can we hold all the events we have been arranging for months?

This year we have organized master courses, concerts and exhibitions, we have selected the best submissions for screening in competition because we would like this festival to remain an island, an important station, which is a fixed point of reference for professionals and the ever growing audience, too.

The Alexandre Trauner ART/Film Festival in Szolnok joins the national festival circuit in October being a relevant spot for cinema lovers and film professionals as well.

Our goal is to screen the latest works every year, films that cannot be seen elsewhere, and to meet the filmmakers that you would not meet otherwise, to initiate a dialogue, to inspire and support each other while filling up your store of experiences.

In 2021, the section of Spectacular Science showcases films on scientific topics while also giving an opportunity for Hungarian and foreign film students to introduce themselves. Once again a line-up of 10 European feature films with spectacular visual design is expecting the jury’s appraisals. Most of these features have not been released in Hungary, thus it is an exclusive opportunity for the viewers. Our jury of internationally acclaimed filmmakers make their own contribution by giving master courses in the cinema during the festival.

This year we are offering a special programme for high school students, a career orientation day, where they can peek into the tidbits of important filmmaking jobs like set design, costume ageing, VFX supervision and make-up. We will also hold a conference called The Story of visual design in Hungary inviting acclaimed lecturers in order to introduce the exciting story of Hungarian visual, set and costume design to the audience. Technical novelties will also be available in our studio, where you can experience the intriguing world of VR, using our latest Oculus goggles.

Soon the red carpet is going to roll out with the first guests arriving to start ATAFF. You can hear the tunes of the Szolnok Symphonic Orchestra and the Air Force Brass Band, the projectors are switched on, and the Square of Muses as well as the cinema is filled with a crowd of film students and filmmakers from all over the country and from abroad.

I wish you all the best for your stay here by the Tisza River so that afterwards you can pass on the reputation of the Trauner festival.

Éva Demeter
festival director

Sándor Sára mentioned once (perhaps recalling Gilles Deleuze) that many people think the film is what we see on the big screen but it is not true: the film rolls in the viewer’s mind. The image projected to the screen (or a computer screen), the “outer image” is only a tool to form the “inner image” born in our mind. I need to add that filmmakers are experts of turning the mind’s individual inner images by means of various cinema techniques into an outer image that can be shared with others.

But do inner images really exist? Cognitive science examining the nature of the mind and perception tends to say yes: every piece of mental content, experience and knowledge related to the world and ourselves can exist as a kind of “inner image” in our minds.

Thus it is understandable that films are not merely instruments of the artistic depiction of the world but they are capable of mediating each and every human experience and knowledge. In consequence, various kinds of film styles, languages and genres were created, and their common task is to cultivate and form the visual culture based on images.

By way of focusing on art direction and the activity of production designers, Alexandre Trauner Art/Film Festival can have a run up of films of diverse genres and topics. Besides spectacular European feature films, works getting images to serve science and knowledge as well as the first tries of film students just making acquaintance with the possibilities of filmmaking and experimenting with the available toolkit can all be found in the festival programme.

In addition to screening the films selected from over 3,000 entries, once again a wide range of rich professional and cultural programmes is offered to all those interested in the problems of visual culture.

László Ropolyi