Béla Tarr: Lifetime Achievement Award

Susan Sontag said she would want to see Béla Tarr's magnum opus Satantango – all seven hours of it – once a year, and counts his films among those “heroic violations of the norms” on which cinema's future may depend. Almost a mythical figure to begin with, admired by cineastes but unknown to everyone else, his reputation has grown steadily in the 21^st century. Gus van Sant was deeply influenced by his work and Tarr is now seen to be part of a trajectory reaching back to, among others, Tarkovsky.

Tarr made his first film at the age of 22. In his early work he focused on the lives of underpriviliged Hungarians in a near documentary-style. His visual style has evolved and is now hard to imitate: painstakingly choreographed camera movements in beautiful black and white shots that will often run minutes on end, creating first a new sense of cinematic time and then a sort of existential crisis. Although often interpreted politically, Tarr maintains that his films have a more “cosmic” dimension and are not to be seen as allegories, but simply cinema about a time, a place, and characters' presence.

Reykjavík International Film Festival is proud to welcome Béla Tarr to the 2011 festival edition for our lifetime achievement award. Three of his films will then be screened at the festival.