Bálint Révész – Granny Project #jedensvet2018

PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Bálint Révész, director of the film Granny Project.

Director Bálint Révész talks about his documentary Granny Project, which was presented at the 2018 One World Human Rights Documentary Film Festival in Prague, Czech Republic. Révész made the documentary in collaboration with two of his best friends, whom he met while studying fine arts in Brighton, U.K. One night, while working on another project, they started talking to each other about their grandmothers, and that is what Granny Project is about. The three grandmothers from different parts of Europe: a Hungarian Jew and holocaust survivor, a German long-time admirer of Hitler, and a former British spy. “The film is about them,” the director tells us in this interview, “and how we see them and how we perceive them.” It is also, he explains, as much about retracing a history of the twentieth century as it is about the transcendental relationship between grandmothers and their grandchildren. Révész also tells us that filming took seven years and, in this interview, he tells us about how the project developed while shooting, but also how it brought them all closer together on a human level.

Granny Project: Three young filmmakers try to revive their grandmothers’ memories in a personal and playful film. They arrange for all of them to meet. A Hungarian Jew, a long-time admirer of Hitler, and a former British spy embark an unconventional road trip. How does family history affect our approach to others and to ourselves? Three young filmmakers from Great Britain, Germany and Hungary take on the serious theme of World War II with a light touch. Each of them has the task of interviewing their own grandmother. Thanks to these ladies’ willingness to play along, the personal stories of women who experienced the Second World War on different sides emerge. The young filmmakers learn through the stories of their grandmothers about their family history, but also about themselves.