Gabor Fabricius

Gábor Fabricius is a director, writer, media designer, MA graduate from Central Saint Martins Collage in London, his professors included Mike Figgis.

His short films were screened over thirty film festivals around the world, and have won several prizes. As creative director, he won the Cannes Golden Media Lion Award Cannes Lions Festival, the Clio New York Silver, and many more. His direct-cinema style short film, Skinner had its world premier at Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), won Zoltán Huszárik Prize in 2015 by Hungarian Media Fund.

His first novel (Más bolygó) was published by the prestigious literary publishing house:Európa Könyvkiadó, in 2016 and was nominated to Aegon Literary Prize in 2016 by the publisher.

He was awarded Multicultural Achievement Award by British Council.

Fabricius was born in Budapest into a family of long heritage of scholars and religion philosophers. His mother, Valéria Sóváradi, is a Munkácsy-prize winner painter, known for her metapsychical style. He has become interested in filmmaking at an early age, began filming amateur avant-garde films at his mother's atelier. One of his first piece at the age of fourteen was a short about a burning egg. His favourite film directors are John Cassavetes, Ingmar Bergman, Andrei Tarkovsky, and writers are Raymond Carver, Arthur Miller, Péter Nádas.

In 1995 he started studying contemporary Hungarian and English literature at Pázmány Péter University, but later quit for video-art and aesthetics at Moholy-Nagy University, Budapest.

In 1997 he founded Republic Group, that has become one of the largest, leading creative agency in Budapest. He focused on awareness campaigns in multiple social and commercial topics. He has been directing over three hundred music videos, commercials and cinematic, experimental multimedia initiatives, exhibited in contemporary galeries and museums in Budapest and London. Among many others, he has worked with György Pálfi, Ferenc Török, Nimród Antal, Ferenc Rofusz, Károly Ujj-Mészáros or Pál Sándor.

Fabricius published his first book in 2009.[1]

Gábor Fabricius is a Hungarian writer. He wrote two books, the first one, Puha Neon Fejlövés (Soft Neon Headshot) was a collection of short stories. His latest book, called Más Bolygó (Different Planet) was first introduced at the Margó literary festival and was published by the prestigious Európa Könyvkiadó (publishing house). Miklós M. Nagy, an award-winning essayist, and translator, the chief editor of Európa recommended the book as "Different Planet is a book about travelling; a parallel road movie while somewhere deep down, Jack Kerouac's heart is still beating. Different Planet is a cynical, brutal book, as if it was written by a Hungarian Breat Easton Ellis—given that Ellis was Hungarian..." In 2016, Different Planet by the publishing house nominated the book for the Aegon Literary Award. Fabricius' recurring themes are the search for identity, being torn between Eastern and Western Europe. His characters often try to define themselves by a definitive historical turning point (such as the systematic change in Hungary in 1989 or the financial crisis of 2007–2008) while trying to set the dream of Western Europe on the map of reality of Eastern Europe. They are torn between different realities: the one they show of themselves, and the one that define them deep inside their personality. Their life is a constant balancing act between expectations and desires; the must and the may; constraints and freedom.

About Soft Neon Headshot (2009, Ulpius ház)

"You may turn away when you see Soft Neon Headshot in the bookstore, but this is a seminal work in cultural history. It gives you an assessment about a subculture that, in the first decades of the 2000s, was highly influential on our collective conscious and our society as a whole. "(antropos.hu)

The book that came out in 2009 with the subtitle "a consumer novel about the media, power and love" was published by the company Ulpius ház. Among its subjects were money, power, sex in a media landscape where everybody spoke with an accent and literally wore everything from tracksuits to Alain Delon shirts, along with such accessories as shoes from Manolo Blahnik, and ties from Salvatore Ferrogano. These are the scrubbed up Hungarian socialites, and this is their kingdom."—wrote András Vágvölgyi B. in his recommendation for the book. "Soft Neon Headshot gives you an authentic view of the world we live in, the world that we all have to live in. 33 stories that were stringed together with a clever idea. This is the Budapest Underground if you like, the secret life, of the wealthiest people in Hungary. While the Hungarian psyche could be regarded as somewhat less complex than the minds in American Psycho. This killer's headshot is softer, he is hardly serial, still, he is just as sadistic as his American counterpart. The slippery but shiny surface of Hungary in the 2000s filled with bankers, CEOs, business magnates whose world is surrounded by visual technologists, media designers and image creators.

It's a balloon filled with hydrogen, to reach the top of the blue sky to get about all snowy mountaintop. This is all being peeled by an invisible hand: "Anyone who wants to know why do they buy what they buy, who do they vote for anyone in particular , and why do they fall in love with the people they fall for." This hand belongs to Fabricius. During a crisis, the image of the economy is quite pleasing: one can look at all this uncool stuff through a distorted silvered mirror, such as the life of the Hungarian elite, the culture of new money that was brought along with the arrival of the privatizations of the nomenclature; the taxi drivers becoming first-class citizen; not to mention the sex with vegetables and the smart porn. The Kingdom of Mary is in a transition, ranging from the mother of Christ to commercial channels, Scientology, up to Michelle Wild and more.The prose of Fabricius smartly peels this balloon pretty smartly, from the surface of tabloid press into the heart of the matter. It is part Zeitgeist, part Nothing. Nothingness, that's just for itself.

In 2010 he founded Otherside Stories, a creative film company, which main aim is to define truth in pictures, whether documentary or fiction.

In 2010 he wrote and directed his first, well-received short, Grown Ups, that was premiered in Naoussa International Film Festival in Greece.

In 2012, his short, Bianca, a social drama inspired by assassinations against gypsy families in Hungary that time, was premiered at 43rd Hungarian Film Festival.[2]

In 2014, his award-winning short, Skinner, was premiered at Toronto International Film Festival. In 2015 Skinner won Zoltán Huszárik Prize by Hungarian Media Fund.

Directing style

Socio-political themes and concepts defines Fabricius' directing approach. He uses organic images, his visual style is defined by realism, mainly coming from documentraies and direct cinema, and from the influence of early Béla Tarr movies. He gets close to his characters, showing them without excessive stylization. In Skinner and Dialogue, he achieved a coherent film language mentioned above. „Reality is not played out but set, in order to bring true emotions to cinema." - he stated in an interview. In his films, instead of simply describing the actions taking place, camera is an active participant. For Fabricius, writing is dicovery, where final narrative is result of an extensive research and exploration of metanarratives. Stories he builds, are not entirely fictional. Fabricius is interested in the truth, personal, collective, or any of its aspects. He believes that certain energies are carried by certain experiences in someone's past, so acting is testimonial presence, a psychodramatical process, where characters can played by amateurs, who are often actual witnesses of events the story is based on. Fabricius compares these characters to actionist performance artists, whos genuine presence perform a story in a purest form.

Themes, influences Fabricius' own affinity for truth comes from his childhood experiences, of the early '80s. Iron curtain fall during his teenage years, while his defining experiences were lies, half-truths, bottled-up problems, repressed feelings. Tibor Szőke, main actor in Skinner, was previously a K1 boxer. Along with Tibor, who is basically playing himself, most men in supporting roles are played by amateurs, who work as debt collectors or bouncers. In Dialogue, the viewer meets with real refugees in a dream sequence. As part of the fictional filmaking process, a psychologist from a civil organization helped them with their PTSD, a driver formerly involved in human trafficking transported them, and the spokesman of an anti-migrant group confronted them. Fabricius only "recorded" their testimony, on their lives.

Erasing Frank

Fabricius' first feature is currently in pre-production. The script was not only known and recommended by international professionals, but they also took part in its development. The experts themselves chose the script for many competitions and workshops, from hundreds or (in the case of Sundance) thousands of other international scripts.[3][3][4][5] They emphasized that the political psychiatry, as an institution, has never been shown in a feature film, this makes the film a first in international film history; the unusual subject makes the script an exciting, and particularly important one—this is supported by the fact that two of the European Union's programs, Creative Europe Media Sources2 and MIDPOINT also chose the script for their program, awarding it with a grant and inviting the writer-director to Berlin and Barcelona.[6][7]

The script was presented at the A-lister Karlovy Vary International Film Festival's 53. iteration (the best 15 scripts were selected from approximately 600). Fabricius' film was the only one that year to represent Hungary as a film plan.[8] The screenplay was awarded the "Best vision film in development" prize.[9][10][11]

• In 2000, Fabricius won a Golden Media Lion in Cannes.[12]
• In 2008, Fabricius received a special award for multicultural achievement from the British Council.
• In 2015, Fabricius won Zoltán Huszárik prize by the Hungarian Media Fund for his short film, Skinner.
• In 2017, Fabricius' company, Republic Group won The Clio Silver Award, New York.