2537 Broadway, New York, NY 10025
We are thrilled to annouce that Glória Halász’s documentary titled Who Cares About Pal Frenak represents Hungary in this year’s Dance on Camera Festival taking place in New York at the Symphony Space between on February 23 from 12PM. The film festival takes place between February 21-24, 2025.
About the documentary
WHO CARES ABOUT PAL FRENAK
The film is a portrait of the choreographer Pal Frenak, from his traumatic childhood to current-day success, and how he cleverly cheated tragedy and the resulting inner demons through his commitment to art. It reveals the heroic odyssey of Pal, the eighth hearing child born to deaf parents, who was placed in an orphanage at six years old after his father's untimely death. Pal learned early that only the art of movement and dance would save him from the traumatic experiences growing up without family in a loveless and repressive communist country. Escaping Budapest as a young man, he matured and finally flourished in the open culture of Paris. Today Pal's Company FrenAk is one of the most heralded cutting-edge contemporary dance theaters companies in Europe and Asia.
Festivals:
• 53rd Dance on Camera Festival - New York, United States
• 36th Girona Film Festival - Girona, Spain
• Dance Camera Istanbul - Istanbul, Turkey
• Film Hungaricum - Berlin, Germany
Producer: Vittoria de Bruin (United States)
About Glória Halász
After completing the Film and Media Studies at the Eötvös Loránd University, Glória Halász has directed eight full-length documentaries, including many international co-productions, which were featured and awarded at acknowledged film festivals, gained main prizes including the Grand Jury Award of UNAFF (United Nations Association Film Festival) in the United States which she received at Stanford University. Her projects are internationally distributed and broadcast worldwide in association with companies like Journeyman Entertainment (United Kingdom) and ORF-Enterprise (Austria). Amongst others she has developed and created various film projects on a wide variety of topics, including films about a jail theatre company, a clown doctor, the world famous Recirquel contemporary circus company, women in India and their stories of survival after major acid attacks, classical ballet students, the 100-Member Budapest Gypsy Symphony Orchestra, and a Hungarian circus artist class that spent a semester in Kyiv before the war. In addition, she has made numerous commercials and music videos. She was invited as a jury member for EPOS International Art Film Festival, Budapest Independent Film Festival and CineFest Miskolc International Film Festival, participated in the directing masterclasses of London Film School and Sundance Co//ab. In 2021 she directed a TIE (Theatre in Education) performance based on the world of classical ballet at the National Dance Theatre. She was awarded the creative scholarship from the HAA - Hungarian Academy of Arts in 2024. The relationship between fantasy and reality is a recurring theme in both her documentary and fiction works, exploring how imagination can be a handhold in a seemingly hopeless situation. She is currently preparing for her first fictional feature film.
About the Festival
Dance on Camera is the longest-running dance film festival in the world, providing a platform for choreographic storytelling and creative expression. The festival serves innovative media artists, choreographers, dancers, and those who support them. Each year in NYC, the festival presents feature length documentary and narrative films, inventive shorts, filmmaker panel, special events, media and art installations and an unparalleled opportunity to mix with an amazing community of lovers of this art form.