Endre Hules, a
panelist for SEE FEST’s Filmmakers Panel at our last annual business conference, can
only be described as an incredibly talented writer and director. His career,
which spans several decades and hails innumerous triumphs, now includes his newest
film The Maiden Danced to Death – a beautifully woven tapestry of a film that
depicts a rival between two brothers over a dance that will save their careers,
and a woman they both love.
Born and raised in
Hungary, Hules studied music and acting at the Cellar Theatre in Budapest and
started writing plays and directing them at 17. He went on to graduate from
the National Academy of Theatre and Film Arts as a director, dipping his feet
television and radio before moving to Paris and then New York, teaching acting,
writing, and directing at conservatories, universities and workshops on three
continents. Soon he moved to Los Angeles
to make films, and ended up acting in several dozen Hollywood movies and
television shows. He has funded his films with the support of companies
and grants in ten different countries, won numerous festival awards, as well as
audience and jury awards. To add to his repertoire, The Maiden Danced to
Death went on to win 24 awards at various film festivals, including Winner at
the Los Angeles Movie Awards (2012), and Best Actor at the Hungarian Film Week (2011).
The Maiden Danced to Death features a
complex plot riddled with references from communist-era Hungary, that fades
between dance and music as the main character Steve attempts to smooth over the
ripples of his past. Steve, a dancer-turned-dance-impresario returns to his
native Hungary after a 20-year absence. The Communist regime that expelled him
is gone, his former apparatchik father has retired in disgrace, but his younger
brother, Gyula still works in the same run-down studio with the same
cash-strapped dance company they both started out in - and he is married to
Steve's former sweetheart, Mari. The two brothers decide to revive their last
project together, a dance piece based on the old ballad, The Maiden Danced to
Death. If Gyula makes it to Steve's exacting standards, Steve can take it on a
world tour, reviving the sagging careers of both.
By all means, if you have a chance to
watch The Maiden Danced to Death, please do. The impressive choreography of
Zoltán Zsuráfszky with The Honvéd Dance Theater, and the original score alone
will leave you captivated, and Hules’ plot surely will leave you with
something think about for days.
