The CEU Weekly (TCW): Dear Peter, thank you very much for accepting being interviewed by The CEU Weekly. Peter, you have a long history in the film industry, you took part as producer in both famous commercial films as “Thirteen days” and also in independent documentary films as “Virtual JFK: Vietnam if Kennedy had lived”. But, tell us please how was that you arrived to CEU?
Peter Almond (PA):
Last year the Rector, John Shattuck and his wife the journalist, Ellen Hume, invited me to meet some Hungarian filmmakers at a reception at the Shattuck home. The meeting was organized by Fruzsina Kacsko, then of the Rector’s office. After that, the historian Rev Istvan on behalf of OSA, and the University invited me back to Budapest to show several films I have worked on over the years. These included the films you mention and two others.
As they say, that was the beginning of a beautiful relationship.
John, Istvan and others here at the university engaged discussions about CEU’s mission and about its orientation as the third decade of the University was beginning. One of the films I worked on, RASPAD, takes place in Ukraine, mainly in Kiev, at the moment of the disaster at the nuclear station at Chernobyl. The writing and production took place in 1989-90 and brought the themes of disillusion and transformation around sustainability issues and energy policy – and government responsibility.
TCW: and Peter, could you tell us more about your ideas and work around CEU’s 20th anniversary film? What is the argument behind? How do you envision it?
PA: The University speaks for itself. In all its elements, the voices of CEU make a proud call to greatness, and sound a lasting sense of purpose and decency. The students present a wide and deep collection of ideas and backgrounds, theses, dissertations, and education and “real-world” experience that one needs only listen (and turn the camera on!)
The faculty brings a high standard of academic excellence. This combines often at CEU with a special orientation to addressing pragmatic problem solving themes, and with CEU’s special inter-discipline emphasis among departments, makes for a special quality of education and research. In recent days I have witnessed baby experiments whose results may impact the treatment of autism and may enhance the deep philosophical inquiries into intention, cognition, and “knowing.” Public policy concerns in EU expansion and post Soviet media in Russian politics and foreign policy have come up for discussion.
The origins of the university add still another dimension to CEU’s culture or atmosphere. The institution began in a period of remarkable transition throughout this region and former Soviet Union. Today, we see worldwide changes that begin to parallel the scope of the changes that accompanied and brought CEU into being.
TCW: Could you please expand on the process of creation for a film like this? How do you develop the script, is there any methodology for it? And then how do you decide the settings or the sequence of the story?
PA: Mainly listening. Some reading, a good deal in fact. But there is endless consulting. Ask your leadership and faculty, and your fellow students: I have brought dumb questions to them ad nauseum. They are very patient and kind, and inspiring. When I go back over my notes I am re-inspired by the nuggets they gave me. Conversations with Farkas Katalin, Cherp Aleh, Matieu Liviu, Moran Ildiko (now an honorary Hungarian, I go into the name reversal without a second thought), and of course the Rector, John Shattuck (as a fellow American he does not get name reversal), - all have given me an historical and intellectual perspective on CEU. And they conveyed a sense of the future for CEU. Looking into CEU-OSA archives of the early days, and reading the history of this region and this institution, gives an even broader backdrop to this inquiry. I should say that Rev Istvan’s book on Hungary at the transition is dazzling in its style and substance. Other faculty have given generously of their time and ideas: Vedres Balazs, Uitz Renata, Trenscenyi Balazs, Nick Sitter, Uwe Puetter, Susan Zimmerman, Kate Coyer and many, many others have patiently explained how things fit together, and where they don’t, why.
So there is plenty of background and context for this project, enough to form the basis for a sketch of a screenplay. Then I made over thirty-five student interviews on film, having sat down with all of them individually before the interview on film for what we call, pre-interview. This student experience on film gives the heart of the film. It makes up what I came to think of as the “resonant present” of CEU, without which there would be proud memories, and brilliant promise to the future, but a somewhat voided center. Instead, there is this amazing action in the heart of CEU: the bubbling chemical reaction (or is it a physics’ phenomenon?) of background and personality and driving interest bumping into one another that makes CEU so full of life and so susceptible to a compelling pace and nature. Any report on CEU would benefit from this core student life.
Here the famous diversity really comes calling: 90% of you, without being asked, offered the significance of the wide range of backgrounds among your department, dorm, or school mates as a primary factor of your experience here. And not just in the rainbow coalition sense, but also in the breadth of experience and variety of outlook that deeply influences the fellow student’s thinking and plans. Taken together with a rigorous academic standard against which all are measured, this makes for a social, intellectual and personal growth process that is probably unique in each student body member’s life.
A lot of you were frankly out of breath by the time we met in April and May. Thesis or dissertation research and performance were breathing down your necks and you were often panting for air. But the topics you spoke of and the research methods (endless comparative systems) brought it all home. They were a wonder to behold: here were issues around jurisprudence involving children soldiers; Serbian and Croatian gender-oriented literary and cultural studies; obscure language and cultural groups of NW Russia facing extinction; and the extraordinary experience of one of your schoolmates joining the Egyptian streets during twelve days and nights of stirring, peaceful revolution. There is a business school case study project on formation of a self-help wheelchair building business among the disabled of Kazakhstan using local materials to create the efficient vehicles. There is the dissertation topic of political term limits and corruption across half a dozen African nations. This is some of the most sophisticated and creative scholarship I have heard about in a lifetime in and near universities (my dad was a professor).
Here are the current and future voices and lifelong students of open society, the citizens of Civil Society, the advocates and the scholars of justice and human rights, the scholars for its own sake whose act of scholarship contributes to civility among people. It is worth noting that most of you were not particularly aware of or interested in speaking about CEU’s history and principles. You embody them in your work and in your beliefs. This is as it should be, or tends to be. Still, a 20th century historian has written,
“The past is another country, but it has left its mark on those who once lived there. But it has also left its mark on those too young to have known it, except by hearsay…However, it is the … historian’s business not simply to revisit it, but to map it. For without such a map, how can we track the paths of a lifetime through its changing landscapes, or understand why and when we hesitated and stumbled, or how we lived among those with whom our lives were intertwined and on whom they depended? For these things throw light not only on single lives but on the world…”
In the end the film attempts a balance of history and the future, and the “resonant present” of you, the students and what you study and believe.
TCW: and during these previous months of work, have you find any major challenge? From a movie making perspective, how would you describe CEU’s environment? Do you find it a good set?
PA: The environment is stimulating, welcoming, charming and lovely.
TCW: and Peter, could you tell us more about your crew? How many people are involved in the production of this film? And how did you select your team?
PA: I have worked abroad (from America) and have come to know other film people around Europe especially. Probably the most gifted filmmaker and teacher I have met is Enyedi Ildiko, one of Hungary’s leading directors. I had good enough sense to follow her suggestions about the film crew, and they are mainly from Budapest. I am working without a fee, and the mostly under 25-year-old crew is working for very little money (including the director of photography). Altogether, there are five of us, with me making six: DP, asst camera, sound, gaffer (lighting), and production coordinator. The crew works when we film. When we prepare (research and pre-production), it is Kapronczai Erika, the production coordinator, whom many of you have heard from and met and I.
TCW: Peter, what are your expectations with regard to this film, what would you like to accomplish?
PA: Something that people recognize and that surprises them with hope.
TCW: thank you so much for your time Peter. Is there any final message that you would like to transmit to the CEU community, to the CEU public looking forward to watch the film?
PA: Thanks for having me. I treasure the experience of getting to now you - the students - and CEU. Thank you.
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