DOKU.ARTS
Zeughauskino Berlin
10.09.–12.10.2014

Dr. Balasz Varga

György Pálfi’s Final Cut – Ladies and Gentlemen (2012) is a film made up entirely of other films, actually over 450 films, covering almost the whole film history from early silent movies to Hollywood classics, cult films and contemporary blockbusters. Dr. Balasz Varga will analyze the film from the perspective of its creative strategies: challenging the norms of continuity editing, narrative comprehension, viewer engagement, identification with characters and evading / tricking copyright laws. Due to copyright problems the film was screened only at festivals and special events but was released / published in Hungary as an educational DVD-supplement of a book about the film itself.

Balázs Varga is an Assistant Professor of Film Studies at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary. He writes and lectures on modern and contemporary Hungarian cinema, contemporary European cinema, and documentaries. He is a founding editor of Metropolis , a scholarly journal on film theory and history. His ongoing research project deals with the post-communist Hungarian film industry and the changing cultural significance of Hungarian cinema. His book Final Cut: Introduction to Film Analysis was published in 2013 in Hungarian and discusses György Pálfi's film in the context of film and cultural studies.