Georgia State University's College of Arts and Sciences, and Department of Communication, would like to invite you to a very special Documentary Symposium on October 19th and 20th, 2013. The Film Production and Moving Image Studies programs will bring the internationally acclaimed Hungarian filmmaker Peter Forgács to present and discuss his rarely screened films Freefall and The Maelstrom. The College is also pleased to welcome documentary film scholars Bill Nichols and Michael Renov, co-editors of Cinema's Alchemist: The Films of Péter Forgács, who will participate with Forgács in post-screening panel discussions revolving around his films. Joining in the panel discussions will be Associate Professor Jennifer Barker from Georgia State University and Assistant Professor Vinicius Navarro from Georgia Tech.

The screenings & panel discussions

Dates: 

Saturday, October 19, 2pm GSU campus, Kopleff Recital Hall
Sunday, October 20, 1pm GSU campus DAEL Theater:

Admission: FREE 
For more information contact Daniel Robins: drobin@gsu.edu

From Cinema's Alchemist: 

"Over the past twenty years, Peter Forgács has created more then thirty films. Most of these films examine the private histories of European families, from the Nazi era of the 1930s and 1940s to the Communist era of the postwar period. The home movies from which he compiles his films are by people who don’t know what the future will be but who now offer their images to those who know what the past has been. . . . Forgács has reshaped home-movie footage, originally intended for the private and personal use of very few, into extraordinary films, intended for the general public and dedicated to remembering the past in ways that matter for our future. His achievement is a form of alchemy, transforming the dross of home movies into the gold of social history and philosophical meditation." For more details on the book, see http://www.documentary.org/magazine/creative-history-engaging-work-peter-forgacs

See film trailers for Forgács's work here:http://vimeo.com/peterforgacs/videos