István Dárday
István Dárday (born March 25, 1940, Budapest) is a Hungarian film director, screenwriter, and documentary filmmaker who became one of the central figures of the Budapest School, an influential Hungarian film movement that combined documentary methods with fictional storytelling. His work is distinguished by its close attention to social reality, ordinary people, and contemporary Hungarian society. He entered the Academy of Theatre and Film Arts in Budapest in 1968 and graduated in 1973. His student films Nyugodtan meghalni (Dying Peacefully, 1970) and Miheztartás végett (For Your Edification, 1971), made with Györgyi Szalai, attracted professional attention and received a jury prize at the Oberhausen International Short Film Festival in 1972. In the 1970s, Dárday worked at the Béla Balázs Studio, where he made socially engaged documentary films. His most important early film was Jutalomutazás ( Holiday in Britain, 1975), made with Szalai. The film established Dárday and Szalai as leading figures of the Budapest School and received major recognition, including the Mannheim Film Festival's main prize. Their subsequent collaboration included Filmregény – Három nővér (1977), Átváltozás (Metamorphosis, 1984), A dokumentátor (The Documentator, 1988), Nyugattól keletre, avagy a média diszkrét bája (East from the West, or The Discreet Charm of the Media, 1994), Tükröződések (Reflections, 1998), and Az emigráns – Minden másképp van (The Emigré – Everything Is Different, 2006/2007), about the final years of writer Sándor Márai. Among his honors are the Béla Balázs Award (1976), the National Trade Union Council Award (1981), and the Kossuth Prize (2012), one of Hungary's major state cultural honors. Dárday became a full member of the Hungarian Academy of Arts in 2011 and served as head of its Film and Photography Section from 2012 to 2016.