| 2015 | Julia Halasz,Matyas Kalman |
| EN,HU |
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“Our work as video journalists allowed us insight into many different levels of society. ‘Happy New Year Hungary’ was inspired by a desire to explore the great variety of perspectives of social realities. We were thinking of New Year’s eve as an opportunity to have visual and thematic connections between different stories as it is a special moment between the past and present. Dozens of young filmmakers and hundreds of participants contributed to the project in attempt to hold up a mirror to contemporary Hungarian society with all its divisions and contradictions.”
Happy New Year Hungary is a collaborative documentary that takes place in Hungary. The 70-minute observational documentary and interactive platform are designed to interlink the stories of characters who would otherwise never meet in real life. The project documents New Year’s Eve 2013-2014, which provides the perfect opportunity to connect people from different generations, social backgrounds and sub-cultures. The project’s official website states that the film offers “a colorful tableau of modern society by following the stories of a diverse cast of characters.”
To create this film, 12 professional crews followed 12 different characters for 24 hours across the last day of 2013 and the first day of 2014. The project team also created an opportunity for greater integration of user content through an open call for submissions. Through this open call, the project team received more than 800 files (about 40 hours of content) from participants. Overall, they ended up with over 100 hours of footage, entirely shot on the 31st of December and the 1st of January.
Zoha jafri
Let’s move on from the modern New Year’s Eve parties in the city and look at what happens in the countryside to learn about traditional practices aimed at giving good health, money, happiness, and good luck to the coming year with new proposal writing expertise. In Hungary, it is forbidden to eat fowl or fish on New Year’s Day. This is due to the local superstition that our good fortune is buried by chickens, and that fish will swim away with it.