Szabolcs Hajdu
“On the Border Between Theatre and Film”
Bold, uncompromising, and deeply personal—Szabolcs Hajdu is one of Hungary’s most distinctive contemporary filmmakers. Born in Debrecen on January 26, 1972, Hajdu has spent his career pushing cinematic boundaries, effortlessly weaving realism with poetic abstraction, and constantly reinventing the way Hungarian stories are told.
His journey into film began at the University of Theatre and Film Arts in Budapest, where he studied under the esteemed Sándor Simó. Though he left before completing his degree, he quickly made an impact with his debut feature, Sticky Business (2001), winning Best First Feature at the Hungarian Film Festival and a Special Jury Prize at the Molodist International Film Festival in Kyiv.
„Cinema always hides something, for example, anything outside the frame. In the theatre, the audience can see everything, so actually, the audience edits the story in the theatre, but with cinema, I have to decide what to show to the audience, and not only in the editing room.“
His 2004 film Tamara stunned audiences with its bold aesthetics, winning the main prize at Portugal’s Avanca Film Festival. He followed up with White Palms (2006), a raw and deeply personal exploration of the physical and emotional toll of gymnastics, inspired by his own past as an athlete. The film premiered at Cannes Director’s Fortnight and won him the Best Director award at the 37th Hungarian Film Festival.
With a premiere at Berlinale, his international breakthrough came with Bibliothèque Pascal (2010), a fever-dream of a film that blended gritty realism with surreal fantasy, earning top honors at the Hungarian Film Festival. But it was It’s Not the Time of My Life (2016) that solidified Hajdu’s auteur reputation. Shot entirely in his own apartment with a shoestring budget, this intimate, tension-filled drama won the Crystal Globe for Best Film at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.
„For political reasons I didn’t want to apply for state funding at the Hungarian Film Fund so my only possibility was to make the film with private funds. I spoke with several film producers in Hungary but none of them wanted to risk their own money, they tried to convince me to apply for state funding. I had enough of this advice, so I decided to find a time for the shooting, without worrying about the funding we decided that whatever we managed to gather before the shooting date would be the whole budget of the film. And from the moment we set the date of the shooting we thought of the film as something that already exists and then people started to join the project. Faith is more important than money.“
Bibliothéque Pascal.
Never one to take the conventional path, Hajdu returned in 2023 with Kálmán’s Day, the second installment in his trilogy dissecting modern relationships. Originally a stage play performed in intimate, offbeat locations, the story unfolds in a lakeside house, where a couple’s attempt to reignite their marriage unravels into an emotionally charged gathering of friends and family. A sharp and deeply human exploration of intimacy, Kálmán’s Day continues Hajdu’s tradition of mixing film and theater, creating a cinematic experience that feels both immediate and immersive.
Kálmán’s Day.
„Distribution is not really a problem for my films. I have an audience in Hungary; there are people who wait for our projects. As for this film, we adapted it from a stage play I wrote. We performed the play more than 150 times in off-spaces – namely, in different private apartments. We go where the audiences are; we search for new, alternative places to the classical theatre or movie theatre.“
Szabolcs Hajdu is a cinematic provocateur, a storyteller who doesn’t just capture life on screen but reshapes the very way we experience it. Whether through film, theater, or a daring mix of both, he continues to redefine the art of storytelling, proving that passion and creativity can break through any limitations.