Bio

Eszter Hajdú was born in Budapest in 1979. She completed her studies in Electronic Media (University of Szeged, Communications Department) and in Sociology (ELTE University of Budapest), and also completed a course of studies in Nationalism at the Central European University (Budapest). She studied Jewish Culture during a year in Stockholm, and received training in film-making in Italy and Romania. She took part in the Amsterdam IDFA Festival Academy. At present, she is living and working in Portugal while completing the University of Drama, Film and Television, Budapest.

She has worked continuously in journalism since the age of 18, as a reporter, editor and program director, in the print media, radio and television alike, while also working for film productions. In 2006, she worked with director Tamás Almási. In 2007, she was employed by Hungarian Television as a producer.

Meanwhile, Eszter has produced documentary films. Her documentary called "My Own Private, Tarnabod” depicts homeless families who were given a chance to start over in the village of Tarnabod, 120 km from Budapest. This film won first prizes at Hungarian and international film festivals in 2006.

Created in 2007, "Destino” – filmed in Sibiu (Nagyszeben), Romania - portrays a well-known Romanian poet, Luminita Cioaba, who is also the daughter of an influential Roma clan leader. This film was shown at several festivals, both in Hungary and internationally.

In Fall 2008, her controversial documentary was released: "The Fidesz Jew, the mother with no sense of nation and mediation”. The film depicts society in Hungary after the 1989 change of regime, in which a polarized political atmosphere has caused major rifts between friends and even within families. The feuding parties turn to mediation techniques to try to achieve reconciliation. In reporting on this mediation process, the documentary displays the deepest feelings of individuals and shows how their deep-rooted political convictions are formed. The film, which deals with previously unexplored issues, is being shown continuously in Hungarian theaters, and early on was often sold out. For this film, Eszter won the Schiffer Pal award at the 40th Hungarian Film Festival, and the Special Prize of the Verzio International Documentary Film Festival.

In 2009, her socio-musical film "Lullaby” was shown, featuring Sándor Mester (known as MS3), the most widely performing guitarist in Central Europe. In 2004, Mester decided he would bring classical music to places where it would otherwise not reach. He performs in small village bars, schools, day care centers, community centers and churches, and then chats with his audience. He believes that a stonemason or electrician is just as discerning an audience as the elite audience of an elegant concert hall. He held his 400th such concert in the Ady Endre High School in Bucharest, Romania, in Fall of 2008. Eszter Hajdú accompanied this tour with her crew, documenting a story about today's classical musician and about the fate of the peoples of Transylvania – without taboos. The documentary encompasses concerts, French baroque chamber music, Bartók for Kids, Renaissance lute music, Spanish Romantic music, and the Lullaby.

In 2009, Eszter Hajdú completed a short film portrait of László Végel, a prize-winning ethnic Hungarian writer from the multi-ethnic town of Novi Sad (Újvidék), Serbia, just over the border from Hungary. Eszter spends the day taking a walk through the writer's hometown. They visit his favorite places, such as the farmer's market; they take a look at where he used to work, the bombed-out building of the Novi Sad television station. Together, they travel to Temerin, a village where Vegel was in hiding, branded as an "enemy” by the Milosevic regime. Vegel was variously labeled "American spy”, "Hungarian ultra-nationalist”, "homeless bastard” by those who could not understand, or could not accept, this individual's commitment to personal liberty and to his European identity.

A new film, slated for completion in 2010, portrays the stressful, hypercompetitive lives of modern-day classical musicians. The film focuses on a disease called focal dystonia, "the musician's disease,” which has afflicted tens of thousands of musicians worldwide – most famously, Robert Schumann - and which ruined the career of pianist Imre Antal. The film's narrative focuses on the brutally honest, heart-wrenching diary of classical guitar artist Sándor Mester (MS3), who suffereld from the disease. The film, shot in Budapest, Barcelona, Hannover and Lisbon, interviews Hungarian and international musicians and physicians alike.

Eszter is now working on another "musician” film as well, a highly personal documentary of the life of Tamás Barta, the founding guitarist of Hungary's seminal 1970's rock band LGT. The documentary also covers Barta's defection in 1974, and his death in Los Angeles in 1982. In addition to many musical sequences, the film features shocking documents that have been accessible only to Barta's legal heir (who is Judit Hajdú, Eszter Hajdú's mother).

Eszter Hajdú makes films about persons and communities worth exploring, because their stories are a memorable experience and inspiration to others. She believes that coming to know and accept others is key to finding harmony within ourselves and with our world. She regularly focuses on people and groups who are excluded by their societies. By introducing us to individual lives and their dramas, her films in fact depict larger social issues. In addition, Eszter conducts sociological research and has, for example, written about Nobel Prize-winner Imre Kertész's reputation in Hungary, and about politically conservative Jews, who in Hungary are considered a curiosity. The latter essay, entitled "Rightest Jews, Against the Current” was published in English by German publisher VDM.

Eszter currently lives and works in Lisbon, Portugal. Her producer is Isabel Chaves of Hora Mágica.

Eszter Hajdú has worked with the following producers and companies in creating her films thus far: PAX TV, Budapest (My Home, Tarnabod), Dan Nutu, Aristoteles Workshop, Sibiu (Destino), János Vészi, Fórum Film Alapítvány, Budapest (The Fidesz Jew, the Mother with no sense of nation, and Mediation; Demonic hands; „Hurry home, your mama's waiting”).