Outside Perspectives, Intimate Stories
Who Has the Right to Tell Them?
The discussion centers on the filmmaker’s personal connection to the subject in documentary filmmaking. In the industry, a longstanding question is: how closely does a director need to engage with the community they are portraying, and to what extent should they be involved with the subject matter? For example, can a European director create an authentic film about a South American tribe? Can a heterosexual filmmaker genuinely capture LGBTQ+ stories if they are not part of that community? Led by writer and screenwriter Krisztián Marton, creator of Crybaby, this roundtable brings together filmmakers to share their thoughts and experiences.
Who do we recommend it for?
For anyone who considers the topic of personal involvement important. The discussion will be in English!
Krisztián Marton was born in 1989 in Hungary. After graduating from drama school, he continued his studies at the University of Theatre and Film in Budapest, where he earned a bachelor's degree in Television Production. As a screenwriter, he has worked on several Hungarian series, and his first novel, Bőgőmasina (Crybaby) was published in 2023.
Chloe is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, photographer and director of Whalebone Films. Her films are intimate, considered portraits, focusing mainly on the female experience.
Her clients and partners include the Guardian, Topic, Nowness, BBC, Channel 4, Oxfam, Save the Children and the BFI and she has had films screen at festivals internationally including at Camden International Film Festival, Open City, and Sheffield Doc Fest. Chloe lectures on the MA Ethnographic and Documentary Film at University College London, and has also given talks and workshops at the London College of Communication, the BFI, Frontline Club, and the Roundhouse. She is a fellow of the Macdowell Colony and BFI Doc/Next.
Gergő Somogyvári is a Budapest-based cinematographer and documentary director with a deep-rooted background in photography and journalism. Graduating in 2008 from the University of Film and Drama (SZFE) as a cinematographer, he has since dedicated 14 years to both fiction and documentary filmmaking. As a director of photography, his work spans a wide array of projects, and he has directed five documentaries that have been screened internationally across TV platforms and film festivals. His first feature-length documentary, Fairy Garden, premiered at the Sarajevo International Film Festival in 2023, explores a trans person's struggle within contemporary Hungarian society. The film went on to win both the Best Hungarian Documentary Award and the Audience Award at the 20th Verzió Film Festival.
Dorottya Zurbó is a film director and university teacher in Budapest, Hungary.
Her most recent feature length documentary (co-directed by Arun Bhattarai), Agent of Happiness debuted at Sundance Film Festival 2024 where it was a Grand Jury Prize nominee. The film is a playful exploration of Bhutan’s happiness index policy through the journey of a happiness agent. The film has won awards at the San Francisco FF, the Margaret Mead FF, Biografilm, Millenium Docs Against Gravity Festival, MakeDox and MAMI. It has played at over 100 film festivals around the world (CPH:DOX; Sheffield; HotDocs, IDFA, Sydney FF, Zurich FF, Thessaloniki IDF, DocsBarcelona, Durban IFF, MAMI etc.). It has also been theatrically released and will be distributed on leading digital platforms.
Dorottya’s first feature-length documentary The Next Guardian (co-directed by Arun Bhattarai), - an intimate family story set in Bhutan - premiered at IDFA - International Documentary Film Festival of Amsterdam in the First Appearance Competition in 2017. Since then, it has been screened at more than 40 international festivals (True/False, San Francisco IFF, MoMA DocFortnight etc.). Parallelly, she worked on her first directorial debut Easy Lessons, a feature-length documentary about a young Somalian refugee girl who tries to adapt to Hungary, premiered at the Locarno Film Festival Critics Week section in 2018. The film participated in more than 40 international festivals (HotDocs, Sarajevo IFF, Camden IDFF etc.) receiving awards such as the Hungarian Critics Award for Best Documentary in 2019.
She graduated from the first edition of DocNomads Joint Master in documentary directing for which she was awarded full Erasmus Mundus scholarship in Lisbon, Budapest and Brussels in 2014. She also holds a PhD degree in the field of documentary and transmedia from the University of Theatre and Film Arts in Budapest. She is a Berlinale Talent and took part in the Nipkow Fellowship program. Beside filmmaking, in the last 10 years she has been teaching and mentoring at the prestigious DocNomads Joint Master program in Europe.
