Balázs Béla Award-winning cinematographer, university professor. He has photographed more than 30 feature films as well as documentaries, short films, TV films, ads, video clips and concert films. His films have received a number of international prizes, The Revolt of Job was even nominated for an Academy Award. Meteo became a cult classic in the movies after the democratic transformation of 1989. In 2017, he was awarded Best Cinematographer (in Budapest and in Parma) via three separate forums for the film Strangled, which was available on HBO and Netflix.
Besides making films, he has taught cinematography at a number of universities both in Hungary and abroad for decades. As a cinematographer, he was the first to have a PhD/DLA, to habilitate and to receive the title of university professor. He teaches even today, and his A Film Book has become a must-read in film studies. He is the founder and current president of the Hungarian Cinematographers Association (HCA).
Festival jury
He graduated from the University of Theatre and Film Arts in Budapest in 2000, in the first class lead by two prominent filmmakers: cinematographer János Kende and director Sándor Simó. The Dump, his diploma film directed by Georg Pintér, was shot in San Francisco. Between 2000 and 2020 he lived in the United States and worked primarily in the independent film scene in New York. In 2013 he finished his master studies in cinematography at the American Film Institute. Throughout his career, he has worked with filmmakers such as Michel Gondry, Tim Blake Nelson, Brian Mertes and Alex Harvey.
He has photographed a number of feature films and short films, many of which have been invited to and awarded at international film festivals. Walden: Life in the Woods, shot in 2016, was highly successful at festivals. For Come Find Me, directed by Nela Wagman in 2021, he received the award for best cinematography in New York. Currently he teaches cinematography and filmmaking at the Budapest Metropolitan University. He was one of the founders of the Hungarian Cinematographers Association (HCA).
Photo: LovrityKA
Agnesh Pakozdi graduated as an economist in 2007 in Budapest, then, as a student majored in film theory and film history at ELTE university, studied experimental video at the Universität der Künste in Berlin for a year. Then she studied cinematography at the Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin, where her diploma film, “Das melancholische Mädchen”, received the prestigious Max Ophüls Award and was also nominated for the Michael Ballhaus cinematography award. In 2015, she received a scholarship to do the “Expanded Cinematography” course at the Global Cinematography Institute led by Vilmos Zsigmond and Yuri Neyman.
She has worked as cinematographer in six feature films, in more than twenty short films, in international series, documentaries and video art works both in Hungary and abroad. Her feature films premiered at well-known international film festivals (Cannes, Locarno, Sarajevo, Karlovy Vary, Rotterdam, Berlinale), her second feature received the best cinematography award in 2017 in Valladolid. At the Zsigmond Vilmos International Film Festival in 2025, her film Blackbird, Blackbird, Blackberry received the cinematography award of Vantage Vision and Special Grip Hungary as well as the Critics’ Award for best cinematography.
After graduating from ELTE university and from the University of Theatre and Film Arts in Budapest, she worked as a theatre dramaturg and translated plays. Then she became the screenwriter of the film Hukkle, directed by György Pálfi. She wrote the script for award-winning films such as Taxidermia, Free Fall, His Master's Voice, and also took part in creating Final Cut: Ladies & Gentlemen, which premiered in Cannes. In 2026, her film Hen premiered at the competition program of Toronto International Film Festival. As a dramaturg, she helped to create several other features, short films and animated films (such as Adgwa-Ata, Bonefuzz, Living Stones, Ruben Brandt, Collector, Entropia, The Last Drop, Merciful Angel, Reduction). Currently she works as a part-time lecturer at Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design and at Budapest Metropolitan University.
He started acting in films at the age of six. He worked as a photographer, assistant cameraman and assistant director, then graduated from the University of Theatre and Film Arts in Budapest as cameraman, and later also from the Film Department at ELTE university. He worked as a writer, director and cinematographer in feature films, documentaries and TV programs. He has been writing and directing radio plays for years. His short film about the Holocaust, Tell Your Children, has been used as teaching material in history classes at secondary schools since 2010. He graduated summa cum laude from the Doctoral College of the University of Theatre and Film Arts in Budapest, writing his DLA thesis on the methodology of the Roma film school. He received a literary award for his first book. He was also given the Tolerance Award many times for his films covering social issues, as well as the Active Citizenship Award by the US ambassador for the Roma film school he had founded. He has been teaching filmmaking in different institutions for 25 years. He is the founder of Lumiere Film School.
His feature films (Je t'aime, Close to Love, Getno, Random) as well as many of his documentaries and short films have been awarded in Hungary and abroad.