The film – Gay Men Straight Dictatorships
Hi, my name is Gábor Halmai, one of the protagonists of Mária Takács’ documentary Gay Men, Straight Dictatorships, which is an exciting detective story about the world of gay people nowadays and during the communist times.
Our dream is to make a 90-minutes long creative documentary, full of situations and recreated scenes, where the stories told by the characters come alive…
![Guys at the Danube side]( "Guys at the Danube side")
CHECK OUT THE TRAILER OF THE FILM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doXxUffZSS4
What was it like to be gay in Communist Hungary? Our socio-documentary
Gay Men, Straight Dictatorships is a 90-minute long creative exploration of this topic. Four young gay guys uncover the silenced part of Hungary’s Communist past and reinterpret it from the vantage point of the current conservative turn. They visit nine “elders”, excavate their secret service files, and act out their personal experiences as recounted by the older generation of Hungary’s gay community.
Gábor Halmai…
![gabor halmai]( "gabor halmai")
Participating in this movie is both a huge privilege and quite a challenge for me. As a gay activist, I have been awe-struck by the courage and the dedication of our “forefathers”, and I am thrilled to be able to help in this historical mission to tell their stories to both the Hungarian and international audiences.
We started shooting the film in the spring of 2012 using our own limited resources. With YOUR help and with some film grants we plan to finish the movie by mid-2014.
How our film will be exceptional?
Internal - external – creative: We re-interpret the stories of elder gay men in a creative way. The work of our internal team of four is followed by an external observing crew, resulting a movie within the movie. It is exciting for a young research team to discuss what we hear and reinterpret it through our personal experiences and present social conventions. We use animation, graphic tools and archival footages but also reconstruct the actual sites of the stories, turning them into stages of inter-generational remembering.
![meeting]( "meeting")
Why is this film important?
Gay Men, Straight Dictatorships is one of the first documentaries about the gay community in Central and Eastern Europe. Our film investigates how Hungarian society and the state have been treating gays and how gays’ personal experiences of social and political oppression have changed since Communism until today. When watching the movie, the audience is confronted with two things: first, how rich the micro-histories of these communities are; and second, how much his/her individual understanding and solidarity can mitigate the effects of state-driven homophobia.
![Director and guys]( "Director and guys")
Why we need YOUR support?
Are you fed up with talking-heads documentaries? Your support would give us the chance to create an interesting, colorful documentary!
Our dream is to shoot this summer and fall the creative scenes that revisit and reconstruct the sites in the personal accounts of our older protagonists in order to give a visually and dramaturgically exciting film to the world! For this we need $15,000.
![storyteller]( "storyteller")
Why your support is needed?
- for the creative scenes so that it is not merely a documentary with talking heads
- for the reconstruction of the sites of the past
- for the production of animated scenes
- for excavating and researching files in the archives
- for travel and lodging costs
- editorial costs
- rental of technical equipment and shooting costs
The Crew:
![The Crew]( "The Crew")
Internal crew:
The four of us, Gábor, Milán, Péter and our "hidden cameraman" – apart from being a historian, an anthropologist, a ballet dancer and a psychologist by training – are all human rights activists.
External crew:
The crew following us is made up of the same professionals who shot the award-winning documentary The Secret Years about the lives of Hungarian lesbians under Communism. www.secretyears.com
Director: Mária Takács
DOP: Klára Trencsényi
Produced by Julianna Ugrin, Éclipse Film.
INVITE YOUR FRIENDS TO SUPPORT THE PROJECT!
Help us to spread this page and follow the investigation lead by our crews and join the experience!
Thank you!
