Film Programme
ELENA & LEO
documentary , Wed, 12:30
Hungary, 2009, 27'
Director: Klara Trencsényi
Producer: Sara Laszlo
Director of photography: Klara Trencsenyi
Writer: Klara Trencsenyi
Composer: Latin Combo Sexteto Cubano
Editor: Gabor Divinyi, Bernadett Tuza-Ritter
Synopsis: Four-year old Elena was already a migrant when her parents left Hungary in 1956 seeking their luck in Argentina. She became immigrant again, in her own 'home country', when she returned in 1975 to communist Hungary; suspected then to be a spy. She suffered and fought prejudice to be accepted and feel Hungarian again… until 2008 when she fell in love with 35-year-old Leo from Cuba. Leo followed her to Hungary but bureaucracy and prejudices made him leave soon. His forced departure turned them both into migrants, searching for a new home … again and again. Our twenty-six minute documentary deals with migrant illusions, nostalgia and the nature of homesickness through the love story of Elena and Leo.
Director: Klara Trencsényi
Klára Trencsényi (34) is a freelance director and cinematographer doing creative and social documentaries. In 2005 she graduated from the Hungarian Film Academy, Budapest as Director of Photography. She directed two mid-length documentaries (A Chance, 2007 and Birds Way, 2009), and a short documentary (3Weddings – Elena&Leo, 2009), and has worked in various international productions as cinematographer, with Dutch, American and Hungarian directors (e.g. the IDFA awarded The Angelmakers, dir. Astrid Bussink, 2005). She has done extensive social and voluntary work with Roma, Irish travelers, and a photography course for Romanian orphans. She participated in A Sunday in the Country in 2008, Berlinale Talent Campus 2008 and EsoDoc 2006. Currently she is working on her fourth, feature length creative documentary.