Budapest Autumn Festival 2007

Sixteen years is a long time. Especially in the life of a contemporary arts festival. This year for the 16th time the Budapest Autumn Festival is bringing together, presenting, staging, exhibiting, putting on public display and showing artists and creations of the most varied genres, turning the spotlight onto today’s arts for ten days in Budapest’s late summer and early winter cultural scene.
Organising and financing the BAF is not always easy, and especially not this year. Despite this they have made a big effort to offer a meaty programme, and following the practice of our earlier festivals, to put together a striking series of events that give an overall picture. Their aim is the same as in previous years: to present the work of a few companies with an international reputation and parallel with this, to show a few major figures and works of Hungarian contemporary art. In short, we remain what we have always been, pillars of the bridge joining Budapest and the wider world.

Since film plays an important part this year in the themes of the programmes selected, they would like to jolt fans leafing through the pages of their publications with familiar and unfamiliar images from slide films. They have taken the slogan from a strip intended to teach the correct fashion: “Jewellery with a uniform is not good style!”

What is behind all this?
We must begin by drawing attention to two unusual musical films, both combining the visuality of the 1920s with the music of today. One evokes what was perhaps the first horror film in the history of the cinema: we are projecting Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau’s 1922 film Nosferatu, a Symphony of Horror, with film music composed for electronics and organ by the Austrian composer-organist, Wolfgang Mitterer. Similarly, the 2005 composition by French composer Yan Maresz and the 1923 silent film on which it is based, René Clair’s Paris qui dort, can be seen and heard at the festival in a production by the legendary French contemporary music workshop, IRCAM.
100%Zappa will be a full-day bash devoted to the life work of the brilliant Frank Zappa, with appearances by Zappa’s former fellow musicians, Zappa fans and clones from the Hungarian rock scene, and the Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Ádám Fischer. And while on the subject of (slightly) lighter genres, this is the place to mention Japan’s number one jazz group, Soil & “Pimp” Sessions, which will bring its refined but brutal music to the Hungarian public for the first time during the BAF.
As for the stage genres: the choreographer Yasmeen Godder, known for her raw sincerity, and her dance company will be our guest again, as well as the Japanese company Pappa Tarahumara, with an original dance theatre interpretation of Three Sisters. The first performances of contemporary Hungarian dramas will be held in joint productions with five Hungarian theatres. Among the authors will be János Térey, Péter Kárpáti and Ágens.

All this is only the tip of the iceberg. Rambling around the Kelenföld switching centre, introducing the Fringe prize winners, contemporary Russian films, EDIT2007, young composers’ evening… and…and…and.
You’ll find more information about the events planned for the 16th Budapest Autumn Festival, on website www.bof.hu.

"The whole city in your pocket" is the motto of the Budapest Card, introduced by our office in 1997. The Card offers its holder more than a hundred services: unlimited travel onpublic transport, free or discounted entry to 60 museums and to several sights, sightseeing tour for half price, reduced price tickets for cultural and folklore programmes, discounts in restaurants and spas, discount for car rental, sports facilities and in many other places, travel accident insurance. www.budapestinfo.hu

Your accododation in Budapest
THE FIRST NH HOTEL IN HUNGARY, THE NEW NH BUDAPEST! LOCATED VERY CENTRAL IN THE CITY, WITH GOOD PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION CONNECTIONS, RIGHT BEHIND THE VÍGSZÍNHÁZ THEATRE. THE HISTORICAL WEST TRAIN STATION IS ONLY 500 M AWAY, ALSO THE DANUBE RIVER AND THE MARGIT ISLAND, AN ISLAND OF SPA- AND SPORTS FACILITIES.
IN A TOTALLY NEW BUILDING WITH AN ABSOLUTELY UNIQUE STYLE IN FURNISHING AND DESIGN, NH BUDAPEST HAS 160 ROOMS, AND A RELAXATION AREA WITH FITNESS ROOM AND SAUNA FREE OF CHARGE. ALSO SAFE PARKING PLACES IN THEIR OWN HOTEL GARAGE ARE OFFERED! www.nh-hotels.com

To get to know the true promise of dining
The new PESTI LÀMPÀS restaurant and coffeehouse, Károlyi Mihály u. 12, 1053 Budapest. Meanwhile highly recommended food and whine and still with acceptable prices: It is a must to visit. Restaurant manager Thomas Boes and a very obliging staff welcomes international guests in the cool bar interiour or in a wonderful inside courtyard of an old renovated palace. www.pestilampas.hu

Press contact:
PPS Promotion-Presse-Service
Chris Rabe/Christian Bauer
EU-Kulturzentrum
D-52391 Vettweiss/Köln
fon 0049-2424-940427
fax 0049-2424-940428
mailto: pps@kfe.de

PPS - Promotion-Presse-Service is a German press agency run by Christian Bauer, journalist and publisher.
PPS is on the market with releases about culture and cultural politics, focussing theater , ballett, music and music theatre, art and exhibition.
Releases in Germany and German speaking parts of Austria, Switzlerland, Netherland, Belgium to print- tv- radio- online- medias
as well as open culture channels. PPS stays close to jmedia partners together with the European CulturForum, KulturForum Europa since 1992 covering their press office. Also covering Int. Spring Festival Budapest, Fringe Festival Budapest, Int. Istanbul Music Festival and Istanbul Biennial as well as Music Biennale Zagreb (since 2007).

This release was published on openPR.