Nagyapám kertje

Editor: Csenge Hegedüs

Script: Zsombor Aurél Biró

Odense Film Festival, Budapest International Documentary Festival

Spanish première

The passing of life, getting older and the things that were once so strong, which are now becoming more and more fragile in this tender and sober portrayal of a human being who is loved and who loves life.

Varga Gábor's grandfather is a man who, as a child, ate cherries down to the stone, and made his living dancing on ladders (as he demonstrates for us by walking over a stepladder like a crane fly). He seems to have spent his whole life working, doing things constantly, because he likes it. He digs the ground, repairs a bicycle bell to make a child happy, perches up on the roof to mend it, and looks after his animals and his garden devotedly. He radiates affection as he sings to his rabbits, picks apart a corn cob for his pigeons, strokes the new-born chicks and roasts pork over the fire with his grandson. He says that he does what he does today thinking of future generations. What will become of this little world when he's not there?

It might seem that Nagyapám Kertje is something that has been done many times, that we have seen many times: a film by a young film student about their grandfather. Nor does it adopt an unprecedented or experimental approach; in fact, he goes about it with total simplicity. However, despite the humility of this début film, it manages to harness the film-maker's ability to show us in a few minutes something as vast as the passing of life, something as delicate as the process of growing old, of changing from a strong, tirelessly hard-working person to a fragile one. As fragile as the little world in his garden.

Miguel Zozaya