Veteran Hungarian director Bela Tarr has passed away. He was 70. The news of the demise of Bela Tarr was announced on Tuesday by The European Film Academy, of which Tarr had been a member since 1997, as per Variety.
The European Film Academy stated he had died “after a long and serious illness.” In a statement, the academy wrote that it “mourns an outstanding director and a personality with a strong political voice, who is not only deeply respected by his colleagues but also celebrated by audiences worldwide. The grieving family inquires for the understanding of the press and the public, and that they not be sought for a statement during these difficult days.”
Tarr was a pioneer of the “slow cinema” shiftment, which was characterised by black-and-white visuals, long and uninterrupted takes, minimal dialogue, a rejection of the traditional narrative plot and often bleak, mundane depictions of everyday life in Eastern Europe. This is perhaps best embodied in his 1994 feature “Satantango,” which clocked in at seven-and-a-half hours and reveals the struggle of a tiny Hungarian village after the fall of communism.
Despite its length, the film became one of Tarr’s most critically acclaimed works and is often included on lists of the greatest films ever created, Variety reported.
After The Turin Horse, Tarr shifted his focus to nurturing the next generation of filmcreaters, dedicating himself to teaching and mentorship. In 2012, he founded the Film Factory school in Sarajevo, where he served as a professor and headed the academic programme until 2016.
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