Ferenc Moldoványi

Ferenc Moldovanyi was born in Debrecen in 1960. He studied philosophy at Lóránd Eötvös University in Budapest. From 1987 to 1990 studied at the Budapest Academy of Drama and Film. He first graduated as a documentary then as a feature film-director. Spent a year at the Paris Film School Louis Lumiere where he shot his diploma film "Hotel Ouest" in 1991. Has made several creative-documentaries, docu-fiction films released in cinemas and broadcast by numerous television channels with considerable success among viewers and critics as well. His popular television series, made for the 100th anniversary of film, titled "The Cinema and..I.-XIV." has had several broadcasts since 1995 and is considered a classic educational series about motion picture, which presents the history of cinema through the eyes of outstanding European directors, cinematographers and actors etc. He taught creative documentary at Lóránd Eötvös University in Budapest. In 1995 he received the Prize of the International Institute of Human Rights of the Council of Europe for his film "If We Eat a Beaver" in Strasbourg. He founded Engram Film, his production company, in 1995. Has worked as an independent film director and producer on his own projects such as the film "The Way", his docu-fiction feature world-premiered at Locarno and shown at over 30 international film festivals won several prizes. His documentary feature "Children- Kosovo 2000" premiered at Berlinale in 2001 was very successful and was also awarded and shown at many prestigious festivals all over the world. His last film "Another Planet" shot on four continents was made in international co-production and also released in cinemas. It was presented at more than 76 film festivals in 46 countries and has won 20 awards so far. Most of his work have had worldwide career and been very favourably received by the international press. A considerable number of professional magazines have published articles and reviews about his films such as the Variety, Real Screen, Moving Picture Magazine, DOX magazine, Film und Fernsehen, Kinema. Well-known international newspapers have also followed his films with interest for example the Tagesspiegel, Le Monde, the Berliner Zeitung, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the Liberation, Le Soir etc. All in all, his films have participated in more than 160 festivals of 50 countries including such prestigious international ones as Berlin, Locarno, Montreal, Karlovy Vary, Cairo, Valladolid, Sao Paulo, Guadalajara, Sydney, Vancouver, London, Amsterdam, Nyon, Biarritz, Yamagata, Denver, Washington, Mannheim etc. His films have won 40 awards so far. His films were released in cinemas and broadcast by numerous renowned broadcasters such as Canal+(France, Belgium, Poland), RTBF, BRTN (Belgium), Sundance Channel (USA), RTP (Portugal), TV3 Cataluña (Spain), Hungarian Television etc. His work was shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and also in various big cities of Mexico and it was distributed in Denmark by the Danish Film Institute. He was a member of the International Jury at the Nyon Documentary Film Festival in 1998, at FIPA'99 Biarritz, DocAviv -Tel Aviv International Documentary Film Festival in 2003, FesTroia at Setubal and the International Film Festival of Guadalajara in 2009. He was invited to be the president of the jury for "One Minutes Junior" by UNICEF in 2004. He was requested to hold a workshop for the young nominees. In 2009 he was the jury-president of the Inside-Out category at the Stranger Film Festival in Amsterdam. In 2009 Ferenc Moldoványi received the Bouquet of Flowers of UNICEF's Highest Appreciation (with the recommendation of Sir Roger Moore, the Goodwill Ambassador of UNICEF) in acknowledgement of his work featuring children's issues. In the same year he was the special guest and also gave a lecture titled Cinema and Children's Rights at 20th Anniversary Commemoration of UN Convention of the Children's Rights, a world conference, at the National Museum in Copenhagen organized by Amnesty International. He gave master classes for professionals and film students as well at the Guadalajara International Film Festival and in Tunis in 2009. In the same year a retrospective screening of his work was organized at the Fourth Thrissur International Film Festival (TIFF-2009) in India. He is also a member of the European Producers Club, Association of Hungarian Film Artists, the Association of Hungarian Journalists, the Federation of International Journalists and the Hungarian Independent Producers' Association. Ferenc Moldovanyi has been invited to be a member of the European Film Academy in 2010.