In this conversation at the
Review of Democracy, Enikő Gyureskó- the Festival Director of VerzióInternational Human Rights Documentary Film Festival – discusses
the program of the Verzió Film
Festival, which will take place between 6-13 November; the rationale
of choosing specific foci in this year's program; the importance
of documentaries in raising awareness about contemporary human rights issues; the
collaborations between Verzió with other European festivals to promote human
rights; the relevance of educational initiatives and university partnerships to
foster critical engagement in Hungary.
Enikő Gyureskó has
been a key figure at the Verzió Film Festival since 2016. Starting as Festival
Coordinator, she became Managing Director in 2021 and was appointed Festival
Director in 2024. Enikő is responsible for the festival's development strategy,
team management, fundraising, partnerships, and grants. Since 2022, she has
also been a board member of MADOKE, the Hungarian Documentary Association. Enikő
holds a BA in Liberal Arts, with a major in Art History and a minor in
Philosophy, from Pázmány Péter Catholic University (2013), and an MA in Design and
Art Management from Budapest Metropolitan University (2017).
Verzió created
a much-needed platform in Hungary for international documentary films focused
on human rights. Over 20 years, the festival has attracted more than 250,000
attendees. In 2020, it launched its online streaming platform, Verziotheque,
offering films nationwide between festival editions. Verzió is a crucial
gathering point for the documentary film community, hosting screenings,
discussions, and events in Budapest and across Hungary. The festival partners
with cinemas and cultural spaces in cities like Pécs, Szeged, and Debrecen.
This year, the festival will run between 6th and 13th of November.
 
Adrian Matus: Verzió
has become a key platform for raising awareness on pressing human rights issues
through documentary filmmaking. Could you
introduce us to the agenda of the Verzió Film Festival? How do you view its
significance within the global landscape of human rights film festivals? What
does it share with other such festivals and what might make it rather special?
 
Enikő Gyureskó: Verzió has been one of the steadiest
festivals running in Hungary. This will be the 21st edition, and it
takes place every year in November, not just in Budapest but currently in six
other towns and online as well. It has a large regular audience that comes back
to our editions yearly. At the same time, we also try to reach out to new
audiences with each edition. Currently, about 20000 people participate yearly
if we consider both offline venues and online audiences.
Regarding its
international embedment, we are part of the Human Rights Film Network, which
consists of over 40 human rights festivals globally. This network raises
awareness of human rights and filmmakers in danger, or festival partners who
operate in dangerous circumstances, such as Belarus or Central Asia, where
democratic institutions do not exist, or people who work with human rights and
social issues are under constant surveillance or harassment. Within this
network, we try to provide support and raise international awareness whenever
one of our members gets into trouble. It also serves as an exchange of
experiences and a learning platform for all of us to improve our festivals. We
are also trying to build strong relationships with several European festivals that
are regionally closer to us. For example, the One World festival in
Czechia has been one of our oldest partners. They were founded just a few years
before Verzió and even inspired us when our festival was created. There are many
similarities in how we think and do our programs. They (One World) also have many
discussions, panel talks, and roundtables. Besides the screenings, just like Verzió,
they try to cooperate with civil organizations and involve them in public
debates. Watch Docs from
Poland is an excellent example in this regard, being operated by Helsinki Foundation.
We regularly
apply together to European funds. One of the major sponsors of film festivals
is the Creative Europe program by the European Union. In the past couple of
years, this program initiated a funding scheme that provides grants to festival
networks. Thus, now we are in the Doc Around Europe
network for the second year, which includes partners from Spain, Germany,
Italy, and North Macedonia. We are focusing together on mentoring emerging
talents and better circulating their works on a European level. These are  similarities that we share.
One of our
programs. funded through grant schemes such as  Creative Europe Media and European Documentary Film Festival
Network. is
called Verzió DocLab. It focuses on
developing documentaries which have a social aspect or human rights focus and takes
place at the CEU's Budapest campus. As well, the Young Critics
Workshop, funded through this grant scheme,
will take place for the third time at CEU during Verzió. This workshop wants to
improve the skills of emerging writers and critics interested in the
documentary genre. These international programs are free; we provide everything
from travel to accommodation.
 
AM: Which are the
main foci and highlights of this year's festival? What documentaries stand out
as particularly powerful to you from this year's program?
 
EG: Our
curatorial team is really excited about this year's program! All the films
stand out and we encourage everybody to try to watch as many films as their
time allows. We try to screen every film twice during the festival's eight days.
Of course, we have some highlights that have already won outstanding awards
internationally. If I have to name one, I will mention I'm Not Everything
I Want To Be - a Czech film about a photographer discovered
recently in the international art scene. Her photographs were unknown before; she
was photographing everyday life and the people around her. She lived in a
socialist country and worked in a factory because she had to and not because
she wanted to. In this context, she took pictures of workers. At the same time,
she identified herself as queer and went to illegal queer bars where she took
photographs. Of course, these bars were illegal then, and she tried to hide
these pictures. She also travelled to Berlin and witnessed the wall falling in
1989. She lived through exciting times and was present at important historic
events.

This film
consists solely of her photographs and has no single moving image. There are
only photographs- about 3,000 of them - yet the team managed to edit it so that
it does not become boring or monotonic. Even though the pictures are black and
white, it is still such a powerful, visual, and empowering storytelling. I can
only praise the editors who had to work hard to make it happen. We will have a
Q& A session with the director, Klára Tasovská, who is coming to Verzió on
the 9th of November so that you can catch her at Toldi Cinema.
This film also
inspired our visuals this year. Every year, Verzió changes its visuals- our posters, our
website, and our social media communications use still images from one
particular movie. This year will be I'm Not Everything I Want to Be- our
visuals play with a plastic foil, a plastic wrap that comes off and underneath
these pictures emerge. In a way, it also references what happened in Hungary. I
think last year, a new law came into action where people under 18 were not
allowed anymore to open, in bookstores, books which talked about the lives of
LGBT people or that depicted anything related to homosexuality. We disagree
with this situation and are referencing this issue in our visuals this year.
 
AM: More generally, how do you select the
movies? What kind of balance do you aim at between artistic merit and the
urgency of the issues addressed?
 
EG: I think a
good film always keeps its value through time. Perhaps from the technical
standpoint, the approaches are evolving. The picture quality and the cameras
used are often of much better quality. At the same time, some films are made
with cell phones, not only with the best equipment. Not every filmmaker has
access to such equipment.
However, it is
not about that any more. The films have become more and more personal, focusing
a lot on individual stories and embedding them in broader societal movements. This
is the best way to make an emotional effect and draw the viewer closer to a
story. In this way, the individuals are protagonists in these films and share
intimate parts of their lives. These directors gain close access to many of the
characters. Filmmakers also film about their own lives, and they are the
protagonists in their films. The heaviness of these topics has always been a
focal point since the festival's first year. The particularity of the program
remains the same, and every year, we try to bring films that deal with urgent
topics.

War in Ukraine
has been in our focus for several years now. This year, we have amazing,
excellent films that stand out, not just because of their heavy topic but their
genuinely outstanding qualities. For example, Intercepted or Songs of a Slow
Burning Earth  are films that I recommend. The director of Flowers of Ukraine will
also come to present the movie. This film was not initially about the war but
about gentrification. As she proceeded to film, the war broke out, and it was
always in the background. In other words, you cannot make a film without
excluding the bigger reality. These films also show personal stories of how war
affects people's everyday lives. In Intercepted, for example, we can listen to the
phone calls of Russian soldiers, which were - as the title suggests - intercepted
by the secret services in Ukraine. It is chilly to listen while you watch
pictures of destroyed cities and the actual effects of their actions.

The Armenian focus this
year was not initially planned, but we decided to have it because we found
these powerful films coming out of Armenia. 1489 is
the title of one of the films that also won the Best Film award at the
International Documentary Festival in Amsterdam last November. One
particularity of this movie is that the director was filming with her phone. As
mentioned, there are still films that were initially not intended to be a movie
but just started to document an event. Later on, they decided to make it a
movie. In this context, this director chose to film her own family. The story
focuses on her brother, who disappeared in the Nagorno-Karabakh war. Together
with her father, they are trying to find him. This is a profound and personal
story. The director, Shoghakat Vardanyan, is also coming to the festival.

The British focus might
come as a surprise. The reason for this focus is Brexit, which has caused less
attention to British documentaries at European festivals in the last few years.
We also wanted to cooperate with the British Council in Budapest and the
British Embassy because we felt that there is less money now in the soft power
of Britain to promote their culture in this part of the world. British cultural
products are not as present as they used to be. We wanted to show a selection
of recent British documentaries and found four feature lengths.

We also have a VR
section called Vektor VR. The
exhibition is at Adaptér, a lovely
communal space run by the local municipality, where you can sit down and watch
VR documentaries. This year, the representation of the body is the focus,
particularly how we experience our body in virtual reality and how it helps us
understand how others might feel in their body.
AM: You have a broad variety of movies, and my curiosity is: how do you select the movies? What kind of balance do you aim at between
artistic merit and the urgency of the issues addressed?
EG: We are trying
to find the films that excel in this balance. Both these points are essential
aspects of the selection. We work as a team; we watch all the films together

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