Soltis 30 (2011)

30 years. There is barely anyone in the present theatre company who was alive 30 years ago, when Gabor Nagy started guiding the first steps of the 'Theatre Group of Sitke'. We are only tiny particles of these three decades, but just like we are all determined by our own pasts, so does the history of a theatre company defines everyone in connection with it. We tried to assemble the past of the 'Soltis Lajos Theatre' out of memories - memories of others, or sometimes only fragments of these memories entwined - the same way we all attempt to piece together our own childhoods and entangled lines of personal development out of memories, pictures, sounds or smells, or just fragments of all the above. We can only hope that these reveries did not deceive those remembering them, and the result assembled is still a kind of truth, however personal. Also, not to be forgotten, that we had our own sorting system to rely on, which may even be stronger than the flow of memories: the selective eye, wanting to find out which thought is the most credible, most true in a film. It often sorts by will of narration - first looking for the beauty of the words, then for the beauty in the frame -, but sees only the distorted images of the small, amateur camera, getting but certain shades of the real picture. It realizes that the picture's beauty is in vain, because the microphone sometimes malfunctions. Standing here with our finished film, we can only hope that the clumsy beauty of the words uttered and the pictures and stories found will cover our imperfections; we can only hope that a notion can have a stronger meaning than any background noise, and that a gesture can show more than a faded color. Searching for the past. Finding the past. The present. The relaxing and tightening of lines and bindings. The ties of 30 years in 60 minutes.