44th National Táncház Festival & Fair • 4–6 April 2025
Issue:
Starting page: 6
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"Vagabond” – a film about the life of the Budapest dance houses. Conversation with Szomjas György director of the film. Szomjas is a film director who has been involved in the dance house movement from the beginning. He has made other films about related subjects and for years directed an ongoing television series that documented the dance houses and festivals. With Halmos Béla, he made a series of documentary films on the traditional village musicians that served as the master teachers for the revival musicians. So Szomjas knew his subject matter for this film. This is a feature film that in some ways is also documentary – it was mainly filmed in real dance house situations with real personalities from the Budapest dance houses. „It was a special challenge – how to present the dance house as an existing phenomenon within a story framework.... I wanted to emphasize the fact that there is a passage, not an abyss between tradition and moderenity...” The film has been very well recieved at film festivals abroad and will premiere in Budapest in the fall. By K. Tóth László