Ferenc Rofusz Special

A LIFE IN STOP-MOTION

We are delighted to present the oeuvre of Ferenc Rofusz, including his Academy Award Winner animation The Fly and another unique masterpiece, Deadlock, which had been censored during the communism.

 
Rofusz was the first Hungarian, who won the Oscar in 1981 with his short film "The Fly" - and became known all over the world - it is no surprise he made several more masterpieces. Sounds like a story of a straight career, but it's not that simple: Rofusz was born in Hungary, Budapest in 1946, at the hardest time of the Eastern European history.

Rofusz's career is a telling and positive example indeed, how an Eastern European genius can realise himself, despite the confrontations with authorities and narrow minded leaders. The enthusiasm of Rofusz about animation started in his early teenage, so during his studies he took special drawing and animating courses. In the late 60's he joined Pannonia Animation Studio in Budapest, and took part the production of several successful TV series, which was a great practice developing his skills. This period was a kind of golden age for the Hungarian animation: Gyula Macskássy, Marcell Jankovics or Péter Vajda (winner of Golden Palm in Cannes) made many hits all over the world. The successes were culminating in february of 1981, when Ferenc Rofusz won the Academy Award. Nevertheless, as a good example of the bizarre circumstances, the director was not allowed to attend the ceremony. Somebody representing the Hungarian official delegation accepted the award, who didn't have the rights bringing it to Hungary though, so Rofusz had not seen his Oscar for a while.

He got the golden sculpture finally, and started to work on new projects: he released two award winning shorts: Deadlock and Gravity. Deadlock is a unique artwork because on one hand it was made by a special technique mixing animation and real life shots, even though the publishing was not approved by the Hungarian authorities. This short film tells the story of an execution from a personal point of view - it was a tough topic in 1984 indeed, not saying the soldier characters speak Russian, which was receipted as a provocation. Therefore only a few people had been able to see this touching animation until now. Gravity illustrates Newton's law, as a creative 

interpretation of the well known legend

of the tree and the falling apple.

Despite his former results, new ideas and plans, Rofusz didn't get the support for his projects. For a shorter period he had worked as a musician - this job gave him the opportunity to travel abroad; in 1984 he decided to stay in Germany, then he moved on to Canada four years later to get a job as a director at the Nelvana Studio. In 1991 he founded his own studio RF Flyfilm. The company has made several quality TV series, advertisements, music videos (We also present Rofusz' show-reel.) In 2002 he moved back to Hungary, and started to work with passion on new films: he finished Ceasefire in 2003 and two years later another short animation, Dog's Life, a symbolical tale of how directors are at producers' mercy.

Ferenc Rofusz is a successful director, freelance animator, who has never made any compromise against his independence. His works and life-story can be examplary for young filmmakers.