{"id":34898,"date":"2017-12-08T22:31:00","date_gmt":"2017-12-09T03:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bocskairadio.org\/?p=34898"},"modified":"2017-12-08T22:31:00","modified_gmt":"2017-12-09T03:31:00","slug":"small-hungarian-army-rural-america-interview-hungarian-american-documentary-filmmaker-reka-pigniczky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bocskairadio.org\/en\/small-hungarian-army-rural-america-interview-hungarian-american-documentary-filmmaker-reka-pigniczky\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cA SMALL HUNGARIAN ARMY\u201d IN RURAL AMERICA: INTERVIEW WITH HUNGARIAN-AMERICAN DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKER R\u00c9KA PIGNICZKY"},"content":{"rendered":"

Source:\u00a0hungarytoday.hu<\/a><\/p>\n

Earlier this month, we had the opportunity to sit down for an interview with R\u00e9ka Pigniczky, a Hungarian-American journalist and documentary filmmaker whose work often touches on deeply personal topics related to her own cultural upbringing.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Pigniczky, who lives in California, was in Budapest for the premiere of her latest film,\u00a0Cold Warriors (L\u00f6v\u00e9szek)<\/em><\/a>. Over the course of our discussion, she touched on her personal background, her directorial style, and the controversial paramilitary group at the heart of her new documentary, as well as her work on the Memory Project, a program aiming to document the oral histories of Hungarians who left their homeland for various reasons.<\/p>\n

This interview has been edited for clarity and concision, and translated from the original Hungarian.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Filmmaker R\u00e9ka Pigniczky (standing, center) filming as part of the Memory Project<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

You often introduce yourself as a journalist and documentary filmmaker. Which is more important to you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the past, I was more of a TV journalist, mainly at the Associated Press TV, but nowadays I work more with documentaries; I see this as a natural evolution toward longer and more involved topics. My journalistic background certainly has an impact on my films, in that I do a lot of research before filming, but they are not all necessarily TV documentaries. Director Zsuzsanna Varga-Gell\u00e9r once memorably told me that a documentary is not just a document, but also a film. I wanted to evolve to that point, and I hope that I have.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When did you decide to get into filmmaking?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It actually happened accidentally. After my father\u2014who had never returned to Hungary after the 1956 revolution was crushed \u2014passed away, my sister and I decided to find out more about his past, since he had never spoken much about it. We were curious as to what, exactly, he had done as a freedom fighter in the revolution. We decided to film everything we could over the course of our research, and, while I hadn\u2019t planned on it while we were recording, it was this material that ultimately became\u00a0Journey Home.<\/em><\/p>\n

In addition, I had studied documentary filmmaking at Columbia University, although I ultimately chose broadcast news, because it was a field where you could actually make money. When I decided to make\u00a0Journey Home,<\/em>\u00a0I applied for two grants from the Hungarian government and won both of them; this really launched me onto my current path.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Most of your films have some sort of thematic connection to Hungary. Is this deliberate, or have things just worked out that way?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not deliberate. In\u00a0Journey Home<\/em>, there\u2019s a roughly six-minute segment where I explain the perspective I was coming from in making the film, as well as my relationship to the 1956 Revolution. As a Hungarian-American who grew up in an ethnic \u201cincubator,\u201d I have a different view of 1956, as do others who grew up this way. When I showed a few scenes from the film in Hungary, people were surprised by some of the archival material [on Hungarian-Americans]. People had no idea how large and vibrant the Hungarian-American community in the United States is.<\/p>\n

Later, I decided to make\u00a0Inkub<\/em>\u00e1tor<\/em>. This film paints a picture, for Hungarians in Hungary, of how Hungarians who fled to the US, as well as their descendants, live, while also examining Hungarian-American identity.<\/p>\n