BÉLA TARR’S MASTERPIECE :
WERCKMEISTER HARMONIES (2022 4K Restored version)
SYNOPSIS
An innocent young man witnesses violence break out after an isolated village is inflamed by the arrival of a circus and its peculiar attractions : a giant whale and a mysterious man named “The Prince”.
Original title: Werckmeister Harmóniák English title: Werckmeister Harmonies Country: Hungary, France, Germany, Italy Language: Hungarian Length: 145 minutes Production year: 2000 Restauration: 2022
CAST
Lars Rudolph, Peter Fitz, Hanna Schygulla
CREW
Director: Béla Tarr Co-Director: Ágnes Hranitzky Screenwriters: László Krasznahorkai, Béla Tarr Director of Photography: Patrick de Ranter, Miklós Gurbán Editor: Agnes Hranitzky Producers: Franz Goëss, Paul Saadoun, Miklós Szita, Joachim vin Vietinghoff Music: Mihály Vig World sales: Luxbox
FEstivals
Cannes Film Festival (2000) - C.I.C.A.E
Berlin International Film Festival (2001) - Winner of the reader Jury of the "Berliner Zeitung"
Chicago Film Critics Association Awards (2002) - CFCA Award for Best Foreign Language Film
Faro Island Film Festival (2000) - Winner of the Golden Train Award for Best Film
Hungarian Film Critics Awards (2002) - Winner of the Film Critics Award for Best Actor (Lars Rudolph)
Hungarian Film Week (2001) - Winner of the "Gene Moskowitz" Critics Award and Grand Prize
BÉLA TARR
Director and screenwriter
(Born in 1955, Pécs, Hungary)
He began his career at sixteen as an amateur filmmaker. Later he worked at Balázs Béla Stúdió, the most important workshop of Hungarian experimental film, where he made his feature directorial debut. Tarr was the student of the Academy of Theatre and Film (Színház- és Filmművészeti Egyetem) in Budapest between 1977 and 1981. In 1981 he was one of the founders of Társulás Filmstúdió, since its closure in 1985 he has worked as an independent filmmaker. In 1989 and 1990 he lived in Berlin as a guest of the DAAD Berliner Künstlerprogram, between 1990 and 2011 he was an associate professor at the DFFB in Berlin, Germany. He became the member of the European Film Academy in 1997.
In 2003 he founded TT Filmműhely, an independent film workshop which was led by him until 2011. TT Filmműhely produced his latest films and Tarr acted as producer on other remarkable filmmakers’ movies.
The international film school Film.factory in Sarajevo was founded by Tarr in 2012; he was the head of programme and professor till 2016.
Tarr is a visiting professor at several film academies. In 2017 at Eye Filmmuseum, Amsterdam he developed an exhibition, Till the End of the World, that is a cross between a film, a theatre set and an installation.
He is the president of the Hungarian Filmmakers’ Association, member of the Széchenyi Academy of Letters and Arts, has been given the most prestigious Hungarian prize for artists, the Kossuth Prize and the Hungarian prize for filmmakers, Balázs Béla Prize.
He was named a Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres and was honoured with several remarkable national, international awards, honorary doctorates and life achievement awards.
“Where Tarr scores over Jancso is in the spiritual element of his movies. “Werckmeister Harmonies” is a classic demo of his almost Brucknerian approach to filmmaking, working subliminally on the viewer’s emotions over large expanses of time even when the viewer is scarcely aware of what’s going on.” VARIETY
FILMOGRAPHY
2011, The Turin Horse
2007, The Man From London
2000, Werckmeister Harmonies
1994, Sátántangó
1988, Damnation
1985, Almanach of Fall
1982, The Prefab People
1981, The Outsider
1977, Family Nest
