From Designing Spaces to Directing Stories
I was about seven years old when I decided: I wanted to be an interior designer. My sister and I spent hours arranging the living spaces of our action figures, and while we moved the furniture around, we built entire universes around them. These games were my first steps toward storytelling. I soon realized that I held not only the visuals but also the narrative in my hands: I loved to colorize reality, surprise my audience, and observe how the way I "sold" a story affected people. Even as an elementary school student, I was subconsciously playing with perception and archetypes in my poems and stories.
Lucid Dreams and the First Frames
The world of filmmaking opened up to me through the influence of Jackie Chan. The blooper reels at the end of his movies led me to believe that filmmaking wasn't work, but pure fun and an incredibly simple process. Around the same time, I discovered the ability of lucid dreaming. At night, I directed my own internal cinema where I controlled the plot; sometimes, I even continued a story from the previous night like a series. This “second playground” taught me that everything is possible in the imagination – even if it was sometimes frustrating to go to school in a lucid dream, only to wake up and have to go in reality as well.
Fascinated by Technology
Although the director's chair was calling, I was captivated from the start by the technical side of filmmaking: editing and visual execution. We started shooting short films with friends using my first video phone, a Samsung SGH-J700H, and then in 2009 came a Toshiba camera with "Full HD" quality that seems laughable today. This was used to create my zero-budget horror film, "Test-Vérek" (Bloody-Brothers). At the time, I didn't even think of myself as a director; I simply enjoyed every minute of creation.
The turning point came in 2011 through my teacher, Ilisie Luminița, who, seeing my passion for filmmaking, persuaded me to do a modern adaptation of a Romanian folktale. "Povestea lui Harap-Alb – varianta modernă" was my first large-scale production, featuring both teachers and students. This was the first time I was labeled a “director,” which sounded strange back then since I felt more like a cinematographer and editor.
The Deep End: 'Sky High Blunder' (2016) (Túl Drága Kirohanás)
In 2012, however, I embarked on an even bolder venture: I launched my own independent feature film project. I was naive and infinitely ambitious.
The filming of 'Sky High Blunder' lasted four years. In this project, I was everyone: director, producer, cinematographer, editor, colorist, prop master, and, if necessary, the cleaner. I learned firsthand what happens when you have to carry a production on your own back. By the time the film was screened twice in theaters in August 2016, I already had more relevant professional experience than I received during the following five years of university education combined.
Where am I today?
Along the way, 'Mariann' 2016, 'Egy Morzsa Éneke' 2018 ('Song of a Crumb'), and my diploma film, 'Felszabadulás' 2019 ('Succor'), were completed. Although I am now a film director with a Master’s degree, in my heart, I remain the creator who is truly moved by visual construction – cinematography, editing, and color grading. Today, I view directing as a comprehensive vision that I am happy to undertake in any project.
