If You Want to Be a Poet
Máté Bartha
After a poet’s death, their life’s work enters a kind of purgatory: no longer contemporary, yet not quite a classic. Attila Bertók is determined to shorten this in-between period for his father, László Bertók, the Pécs-based poet who received the Kossuth and József Attila Prizes and died in 2020. Yet his struggle is twofold: in the shadow of his father’s immense legacy, he must also find his own path. Featuring an experimental visual and musical language, the documentary explores questions of memory and immortality through the voices of contemporary Hungarian poets, while László Bertók’s poetic universe unfolds from the streets of Pécs to cosmic horizons.
OTHER FILMS
Photo Gallery
Trailer
Máté Bartha
Director
Máté Bartha is a Budapest-based visual artist working in photography and documentary film. He graduated from Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design with a Master's degree in photography and later studied documentary filmmaking at the University of Theatre and Film Arts in Budapest. His work combines documentary observation, staged situations and visual experimentation. His Kontakt series received the Robert Capa Grand Prize Hungary in 2018 and the Louis Roederer Discovery Award at the Rencontres d’Arles in 2019.
