Home Movie Makers' Stories

Over 200 hours of audio interviews made in the 1980s and 1990s with amateur filmmakers themselves and/or their family members about family life and events recorded in home movies in the 1930s through the 1960s. The stories are told by and about many different kinds of people including artists, professionals, politicians, aristocrats, with different believes, social background and ideology. The stories cover the families’ everyday life, vacations in the countryside in Hungary and on the beach in Croatia, housing projects, leisure time, pig killings, weddings, baptisms, sport events etc. The storytellers also talk about major historical events such as the persecution of Jews, the demise of the Hungarian 2nd army in the Soviet Union during WWII, the visit of Victor Emmanuel III in Hungary, and the 1956 revolution. What you get is a kaleidoscopic picture of the 20th century. Uniquely, the home movies discussed in the audio interviews – actually many were recorded while the participants were watching the films or family photo albums – are themselves available at the Archivum. Studying the two collections side by side offers a rare opportunity to look into the micro worlds as parts of big history from multiple angles.