A work in constant progress (and occasional regress).
Birthplace:
Budapest, Hungary
Born:
September 19, 1931
Márta Mészáros (born 19 September 1931) is a Hungarian screenwriter and film director. The daughter of László Mészáros, a sculptor, Mészáros began her career working in documentary film, having made 25 documentary shorts over the span of ten years. Her full-length directorial debut, Eltavozott nap/The Girl (1968), was the first Hungarian film to have been directed by a woman, and won the Special Prize of the Jury at the Valladolid International Film Festival. Mészáros' work often combines autobiographical details with documentary footage. Prominent themes include characters' denials of their pasts, the consequences of dishonesty, and the problematics of gender. Her films often feature heroines from fragmented families, such as young girls seeking their missing parents (The Girl) or middle-aged women looking to adopt children (Adoption). Although Mészáros has made over fifteen feature films, she is arguably best known for Diary for My Children (1984), which won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival. It was the first entry in a trilogy of autobiographical films which also includes Diary for my Lovers (1987) and Diary for my Father and Mother (1990). Throughout her career, Mészáros has won the Golden Bear and the Silver Bear awards at the Berlinale; the Golden Medal at the Chicago International Film Festival; the Silver Shell at the San Sebastian International Film Festival; and the FIPRESCI Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. In 1991 she was a member of the jury at the 17th Moscow International Film Festival.
Additional Camera:
2017 No Country for the Poor
Director:
1957 Let All Children Smile
1958 Women of Today
1965 Blow-Ball
1968 In Memoriam László Mészáros
1968 The Girl
1969 Binding Sentiments
1970 Don’t Cry, Pretty Girls!
1972 At the Lőrinc Spinnery
1973 Riddance
1974 At the End of September
1975 Adoption
1976 Nine Months
1978 Just Like at Home
1978 The Two of Them
1979 On the Move
1980 The Inheritance
1981 A Mother, a Daughter
1983 The Land of Mirage
1984 Diary for My Children
1984 Vieras
1987 Diary for My Loves
1989 Bye Bye, Red Riding Hood
1990 Diary for My Father and My Mother
1993 Edith and Marlene
1994 Fetus
1996 The Seventh Room
1999 Daughters of Fortune
2000 Little Vilma: The Last Diary
2001 The Miraculous Mandarin
2004 The Unburied Man
2009 Last Report on Anna
2012 Hungary 2011
2015 My Mother's Letters to Stalin
2017 Aurora Borealis: Northern Light
2017 No Country for the Poor
Director of Photography:
1957 Let All Children Smile
1958 Women of Today
1965 Blow-Ball
1968 In Memoriam László Mészáros
1968 The Girl
1969 Binding Sentiments
1970 Don’t Cry, Pretty Girls!
1972 At the Lőrinc Spinnery
1973 Riddance
1974 At the End of September
1975 Adoption
1976 Nine Months
1978 Just Like at Home
1978 The Two of Them
1979 On the Move
1980 The Inheritance
1981 A Mother, a Daughter
1983 The Land of Mirage
1984 Diary for My Children
1984 Vieras
1987 Diary for My Loves
1989 Bye Bye, Red Riding Hood
1990 Diary for My Father and My Mother
1993 Edith and Marlene
1994 Fetus
1996 The Seventh Room
1999 Daughters of Fortune
2000 Little Vilma: The Last Diary
2001 The Miraculous Mandarin
2004 The Unburied Man
2009 Last Report on Anna
2012 Hungary 2011
2015 My Mother's Letters to Stalin
2017 Aurora Borealis: Northern Light
2017 No Country for the Poor
Screenplay:
1957 Let All Children Smile
1958 Women of Today
1965 Blow-Ball
1968 In Memoriam László Mészáros
1968 The Girl
1969 Binding Sentiments
1970 Don’t Cry, Pretty Girls!
1972 At the Lőrinc Spinnery
1973 Riddance
1974 At the End of September
1975 Adoption
1976 Nine Months
1978 Just Like at Home
1978 The Two of Them
1979 On the Move
1980 The Inheritance
1981 A Mother, a Daughter
1983 The Land of Mirage
1984 Diary for My Children
1984 Vieras
1987 Diary for My Loves
1989 Bye Bye, Red Riding Hood
1990 Diary for My Father and My Mother
1993 Edith and Marlene
1994 Fetus
1996 The Seventh Room
1999 Daughters of Fortune
2000 Little Vilma: The Last Diary
2001 The Miraculous Mandarin
2004 The Unburied Man
2009 Last Report on Anna
2012 Hungary 2011
2015 My Mother's Letters to Stalin
2017 Aurora Borealis: Northern Light
2017 No Country for the Poor
Writer:
1957 Let All Children Smile
1958 Women of Today
1965 Blow-Ball
1968 In Memoriam László Mészáros
1968 The Girl
1969 Binding Sentiments
1970 Don’t Cry, Pretty Girls!
1972 At the Lőrinc Spinnery
1973 Riddance
1974 At the End of September
1975 Adoption
1976 Nine Months
1978 Just Like at Home
1978 The Two of Them
1979 On the Move
1980 The Inheritance
1981 A Mother, a Daughter
1983 The Land of Mirage
1984 Diary for My Children
1984 Vieras
1987 Diary for My Loves
1989 Bye Bye, Red Riding Hood
1990 Diary for My Father and My Mother
1993 Edith and Marlene
1994 Fetus
1996 The Seventh Room
1999 Daughters of Fortune
2000 Little Vilma: The Last Diary
2001 The Miraculous Mandarin
2004 The Unburied Man
2009 Last Report on Anna
2012 Hungary 2011
2015 My Mother's Letters to Stalin
2017 Aurora Borealis: Northern Light
2017 No Country for the Poor
Most data and links to images for the Movies section come from TheMovieDB (TMDB).
Additional data for Film Titles come from The Open Movie Database (OMDb).
At least one plug-in comes from IMDb.
Data are -- hey, it's a plural -- subject to the limitations of their sources. (For example, TMDB search results currently max out at 20.) I am limiting myself to free data sources for now. (No, a "free trial" is not free.)
While much of the above data are retrieved directly from outside APIs and other such sources, data from American Film Institute (AFI) and British Film Institute (BFI) were manually entered the old fashioned way into a MySQL database. Re BFI I took the following liberties:
Regarding profile removals and data corrections:
Filtering is applied here to film projects flagged as "adult" by TheMovieDB. Pending "popular demand" I am contemplating a login and profile system with preferences (such as whether to allow adult images to appear) and permissions (such as data entry).
Whereas the overall purpose of this website is to serve as a personal demo/portfolio/workshop of web and data skills, this Movies section is not meant to compete with or substitute for far more definitive movie websites.
Whether or not he still clings to an award which he won in 1986 as a film critic for his college's newspaper, Jeffrey Hartmann is not responsible for the texts of overviews and biographies supplied by external data sources.