Béla Tarr

Béla Tarr

Béla Tarr started working in film as an amateur, at the age of 16. He directed his first feature film, Family Nest (1977) at the age of 22. This film, along with The Outsider (1981) and The Prefab People (1982), constitutes the first phase of Bela Tarr's opus, characterized by social issues and documentary style. In the mid 1980s, he started collaboration with the writer László Krasznahoraki, whose works were the basis of Tarr's film Damnation (1988), Satan's Tango (1994) and Werckmeister Harmonies (2000). Damnation marked the beginning of the visual style for which he is known today: a distinctive black-and-white photographic approach, and long, slow shots, which culminated in the seven-and-a-half hour long adaptation of Krasznahoraki's novel, his masterpiece, the Satan's Tango. The film brought him international recognition, and the Werckmeister harmonies are not less appreciated, either. His next film, The Man from London (The Man from London, 2007) is based on the novel by Georges Simenon. The film The Turin Horse (The Turin Horse, 2011), which he announced several years ago as the last movie he would produce, was presented at the Berlin Film Festival, and was awarded with the Grand Jury Prize - the Silver Bear, as well as with the FIPRESCI Prize. Because of his relentlessness, Tarr was never part of mainstream film-making. The film world considers him one of the world's most original and most coveted contemporary authors.