A Guest of Life – Alexander Csoma de Körös

Colour, 35 mm
Hungary, 2006, 79 min
Section: 2008: A Musical Odyssey

Synopsis

“The life of Alexander Csoma de Körös has occupied my mind for many years,” says musician and filmmaker Tibor Szemzö. On his trip to the Himalayas he found the places where this Hungarian linguist and philologist developed his theories and compiled the first dictionary and grammar of the Tibetan language. Szemzö abandoned his original intention to film a “normal” portrait, instead incorporating Asian music, 8mm footage and animation into his mysterious, witty, Zen-inspired open form. He thus points to the various aspects to be considered when examining Alexander Csoma, in Hungary still revered as the son of the nation. Tibor Szemzö is known chiefly as a musician and sound artist, skills which come to the fore in his highly original soundtrack to the documentary series Private Hungary. The film A Guest of Life – Alexander Csoma de Körös is similarly multi-stratified, enigmatic and free-flowing like ambient sound landscapes. The project will be presented in its live multimedia stage version in 2008.

About the director

Tibor Szemzö (b. 1955, Budapest), a graduate of Budapest’s Music Academy, has been a familiar figure since the late 1970s primarily as a composer and performer of experimental and ambient music. He has been focusing more on film in recent years. Albums of his music are published by the London label Leo Records, one of which was released in Czechoslovakia. He was involved as a composer and sound designer in the series Private Hungary, in which filmmaker Péter Forgács incorporated personal and family home movies made during the 20th century. Szemzö created the short films Skullbase Fracture (1985), Cuba (1993), The Other Shore (1998) and What There Is (2005). A Guest of Life – Alexander Csoma de Körös is his first feature-length film.