SYNAGOGUE FOR SALE – documentary film (2007)
Privatization, Irish pub, mortgage, auction. Who would guess we’re talking about a synagogue in Kőszeg, a small town in Hungary? The synagogue is in the center of town. Officially under landmark protection, it’s falling apart; the walls are rotting. The Cultural Heritage professionals throw up their hands and hope for the best. Meanwhile, the property owners wait for their investment to pay off. The Jewish community in a neighboring town joins the local government in setting up a foundation. A married couple rolls up their sleeves and attempts to save the building.
In presenting the fate of this 150-year old building, the documentary Synagogue for Sale shines a critical light on Hungary’s recent history.
DVCAM, length: 47 min., 2007, Hungary
Hungarian with English subtitles (original title: Zsinagógát vegyenek!)
“For a private owner, this building won’t be worth anything until it collapses.”
“We should be clear about this: investing in the synagogue is a bad business decision.”
“I love this building. I want to do something about it.”
“No normal person would buy a synagogue, because he wouldn’t know what to do with it.”
Featuring
János Benkő
Anikó Béres
Sándor Béres
Lajosné Gamauf
Tamás Hauer
Péter Ivicsics
Endre György Jelinek
Károly Kiss
Gusztáv Krug
István Mátrai
Margit Tokaj
Photos
National Office of Cultural Heritage – Photo Archive
Lajosné Gamauf
Musicians
Zoltán Hegyaljai-Boros (viola)
János Mazura (tuba)
Zsombor Réthy (trombone)
Zoltán Szokolai (accordion)
Music recorded by
Vilmos Noszticzius
INITA Sound Studio
Post-production
4CUT Digital Workshop
Editor
László Hargittai, H.S.E.
Script, interviews
Ilona Gaal
Bori Kriza
Producer – composer
Balázs Wizner
Director – cinematographer
Zsuzsanna Gellér-Varga
Supported by
Motion Picture Public Foundation of Hungary
Ministry of Cultural Heritage
© 2007. Metafórum Film, Zsurló Film Kft.
ILONA GAAL
(interviews, script) currently works as a journalist and editor at the Hungarian National Radio. After obtaining her degree in sociology and economy she published articles at Figyelő (economic weekly), at hvg.hu (online economic portal), and Magyar Narancs (political and current affairs weekly). She worked as the deputy editor in chief at “manager magazin” for 2 years. She wrote an investigative report about the story of the documentary “Synagogue for Sale” for “manager magazine”.
BORI KRIZA (interviews, script) obtained her MA in Sociology and Sociology of Minorities at Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) in Budapest, Hungary and also studied at the Nationalism Studies Program of the Central European University, Budapest. Currently as a beneficiary of the French Government Scholarship she is a Ph.D. candidate at the Institut dEtudes Politiques de Paris as well as at the Institute of Sociology, ELTE. She participated in numerous research projects; her main research interests include far right political parties and ideologies in Europe, national myths and identity, migration, minorities, xenophobia, anti-Semitism and collective memory. She has published extensively in Hungarian and English, her reports and articles appear regularly in the Hungarian press. Since 1999, as expert, researcher, interviewer, she has contributed to several award winning documentaries treating social issues (Being Decorated, The End of the Road, From Home to Home by Tamás Almási).
BALÁZS WIZNER (producer-composer) is the director of METAFORUM Media and Research Center. He graduated as a sociologist, got his Masters degree in Nationalism Studies at CEU (Central European University, Budapest) and has been a Ph.D. student at the Institute of Sociology, Eötvös Loránd University Budapest since 1998. Apart from participating in several research projects and academic activities Balazs Wizner had been the script-writer and co-producer for a short film (Three walks, 2003) and the publisher of two books (A palacsinta hangja. The Sound of Pancake. Collected Writings of Gypsy Children from a Ghetto-Village, 1999. A pilóta. The pilot. Novel, 2000). His second novel will be published in fall 2005. He was the composer of a theater play and a short film, he plays the trumpet and writes music for his own jazz band.
LÁSZLÓ HARGITTAI (editor) is the founder and co-owner of 4Cut Digital Workshop. Since 1990 he had worked at the Hungarian National Television, at TV3, at Duna Television as an editor. He edited numerous award-winning feature and documentary films (amongst them are the films of Tamás Almási, Réka Pigniczky, András Salamon, Csaba Szekeres).
Privatization, Irish pub, mortgage, auction. Who would guess we’re talking about a synagogue in Kőszeg, a small town in Hungary?
The synagogue is in the center of town. Officially under landmark protection, it’s falling apart; the walls are rotting. The Cultural Heritage professionals throw up their hands and hope for the best. Meanwhile, the property owners wait for their investment to pay off. The Jewish community in a neighboring town joins the local government in setting up a foundation. A married couple rolls up their sleeves and attempts to save the building.
In presenting the fate of this 150-year old building, the documentary Synagogue for Sale shines a critical light on Hungary’s recent history.
Director’s Statement
Sometimes a building is more than just bricks and mortar.
When I was shooting my previous documentary – Once They Were Neighbours – about a small Hungarian town and its non-Jewish elderly people’s memory about the Holocaust, I stumbled upon the old building of the synagogue. It stands at the most frequented spot of the city – but behind a locked fence and weeds around it. The building’s status mirrors that of the local Jewish life: extinguished long time ago and no chance of revival. When I started to investigate the history and the present status of the synagogue, I found crazy stories: it is still under auction because a mortgage was placed on the building many years ago. Once it was almost turned into an Irish pub. Later the officials didn’t allow the owners to renovate so now there is water leaking through the roof, destroying the inner frescoes and wooden structures of the unique building. The synagogue has been “played around” with just like any other previously state owned properties that ended up being privatized after the change of the regime. It’s been subject of speculation and quarrel, hatred and stupidity. The people involved with it have their own reasons – noble or not so much.
After immersing into the story I realized that making a documentary about it can not only show some general human stories about enthusiasm and greed, narrow-mindedness and motivation, but at the same time it might help to save the building by shedding light to an absurd situation that needs to be remedied quickly.
Manager Magazin (monthy financial print magazine)
2006. September Ilona Gaal: Under Auction. Synagogue-business
Click the logo for the article (in Hungarian). TRANSLATION TO COME
Film.hu (professional film website)
2006. 12. 14. Balázs Dénes: Absurd situation? Make a film about it. Synagogue For Sale
Click the logo for the article (in Hungarian). TRANSLATION TO COME
Alpokalja-Online (news portal)
2006.12.23. Synagogue For Sale – Little absurd from Kőszeg
Click the logo for the article (in Hungarian). TRANSLATION TO COME
Klubháló (cultural blogs)
2007. 02. 01. József Böjte’s blog about the Hungarian Film Week (excerpt)
“I would like to focus on a few valuable films and intriguing filmmakers, because they are worth noting. (The films will be re-screened in the Urania Theater next week, through Wednesday.)
Zsuzsanna Gellér-Varga’s film, “Synagogue For Sale,” is a documentary with a moral, the story of the plight of the abandoned synagogue in Kőszeg. Due to several changes in ownership, the Jewish religious community’s incompetence, the state and local governments’ passivity, and the preservationists’ indifference, to this day there is still no one committed to saving the synagogue, whose condition will soon resemble Olaszliszka [a Hungarian village whose crumbling and disappearing synagogue and cemetary were recorded in a three-part documentary by famed Hungarian director Miklós Jancsó]. One of my friends recently remarked that the one thing in Hungary that you can count on is envy. This film depicts the difficult road traveled by a middle-aged couple, willing and able to restore a small part of the site in keeping with its heritage, but meet with hostility and envy at every turn.”
Film.hu (professional film website)
2007. 02. 02. Viktória Réka Kiss: The jury’s evaluation of the documentary films
“…The jury significantly praised these films: Hungarian Football (András Pires Muhi), They Live Their Lives (Zsigmond Dezső), Synagogue For Sale (Zsuzsanna Gellér-Varga) and The Cattle-Car (Zelki János) …”
Judapest.org
2007. 01. 31. “vadjutka” blog: Synagogue For Sale
“…A story about the white spots born by the changing of the regime, the shoving of responsibilities, impotence, Jews and non-Jews and about a soon disappearing monument.”
Élet és Irodalom (poltical and cultural weekly)
2007. 03. 02. Lóránt Stőhr: Returnees, Displaced Persons, Emigres
Reflections on the Documentaries Presented at the 38th Hungarian Film Festival
“In her film “Synagogue For Sale,” Zsuzsanna Gellér-Varga delves into the fate of the synagogue in the Hungarian town of Kőszeg. The ongoing saga surrounding the synagogue’s sale and the rocky road to its restoration shed light on the excruciating responsibility of preserving the Jewish community’s physical heritage and its past. The film’s tightly woven structure focuses on a sharp conflict between the couple who purchase the synagogue’s auxiliary buildings and wish to preserve the buildings in their historical context, and the uneasy alliance between the Jewish community and town administration who, late in the game, realize what’s at stake. If we were to read about this conflict as a brief newspaper item, the latter’s position would seem the reasonable one: yet this documentary shows us what’s between the lines, and its footage, filmed over the course of months, demonstrates the human integrity of the activist couple.”
Filmvilág (monthly film magazine)
2007/October Ferenc Wostry: Spaniards in the Pantry. The Cinefest in Miskolc, Hungary
“Zsuzsanna Gellér-Varga’s documentary, “Synagogue For Sale,” paints a starkly honest picture of a local government’s incompetence, the small-mindedness of the local Jewish community, and the attempts of two ordinary, but extraordinarily capable, persons to rescue the Kőszeg synagogue, abandoned since the war and about to collapse. It is the kind of effective, fact-finding documentary so rare in Hungary.”
Click the logo for the full article. (In Hungarian)
Rabbi Seminary – Jewish University
Doctoral School 3rd year 2nd semester, 2008.
Ildikó Kárpáti: “Remains of the Days” “Synagogue for Sale” – a documentary film by Zsuzsanna Gellér-Varga
“The ruins of the Koszeg synagogue stands still in the heart of beautiful Koszeg as does the history of the Hungarian Jews in Hungarian history: it’s an unheard of, shameful, unprocessable but at the same time unavoidable, eery and a highly horrible thing. They stand apart and can’t deal with each other.”
Click here. for the full article. (In Hungarian)
Zona.hu
2008. July 8. László Szále: A Stubborn Synagogue in the Heart of Koszeg
“The synagogue of Koszeg doesn’t want to collapse, although it has been standing empty since 1944 and for – almost – everybody this would be the most suitable outcome.
The city government could become carefree, the owner(s) would have a cheaply bought and glamorous inner-city property, they wouldn’t have needed to renovate the temple once it’s collapsed. But – as for now – it stands still.”
Click the logo for the full article. (In Hungarian)
- 38th Hungarian Film Week – Budapest, Hungary
official selection – 2007. Jan. 31. Wed 14.45 and Febr. 1. Thu 15.15 (with English translation) in Mammut Cinema, Febr. 3. Sat 13.00 in Urania Cinema - 4th Film.dok Hungarian – Romanian Documentary Film Festival – Miercurea Ciuc, Romania
official selection – 2007. May 14-20. - Aired on Duna TV (Hungarian public access channel) – 08/27/2007
- 4th Cinefest Miskolc – International Festival of Young Filmmakers – Miskolc, Hungary, 09/2007
Duna Award - 7th Hungarian Film Festival of Los Angeles – Los Angeles, CA, USA – 11/2007
- Aired on M2 (Hungarian public TV) – 01/23/2008
- 2008 Dialektus Film Festival – Budapest, Hungary – 03/2008
official selection - “Crossroads of Europe” International Days of Documentary Cinema – Lublin, Poland – 04/2008
official selection - 2008 Jewish Eye World Jewish Film Festival – Ashkelon, Israel – 10/2008
official selection
Synagogue For Sale – a documentary film by Zsuzsanna Geller-Varga on Vimeo.
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