Winners of the International Ethnographic Film Festival in 2025

The winners of the International Ethnographic Film Festival (Nemzetközi Népismereti Filmszemle) have been announced! The Museum of Ethnography held the International Ethnographic Film Festival in Stana, Romania for the third time between August 28-31, 2025. The festival was launched in 2014 by the Dr. Károly Kós Ethnologist Foundation. This year's festival received 25 film submissions, with four competing in the youth category.

In the adult category, the winners were Máté Bartha and Zsófia Szonja Illés for their film "Wild Waterland" (Vadvízország) and Levente Vargyasi for his film "Sprinkling with a Sled in Székelytamásfalva" (Szánas locsolás Székelytamásfalván). In the youth category, Hanna Peresztegi's work titled "Spoken Words" (Kimondott szavak) was deemed the best.

Parallel to the Film Festival, a film camp for students was organized for the first time in 2025. The work of the camp participants was supported by film and ethnography professionals through lectures and practical workshops. On August 30, the films made by the students at the Stana camp were also screened at the film festival.

The jury awarded 1st and 2nd prizes in the youth category. In the adult category, two 1st prizes, one 2nd prize, and one 3rd prize were awarded. Special prizes were offered by the Hungarian Open Air Museum, the Dr. Károly Kós Ethnologist Foundation, the Hungarian Ethnographic Society, and the Museum of Ethnography. The camp and the film festival were supported by the National Film Institute.

Congratulations to the creators of the awarded films:

Adult Category

1st Prize

Máté Bartha - Zsófia Szonja Illés: Wild Waterland
The lush, dark green forest belt surrounding the winding Tisza River hides a unique world. This jungle-like, dense forest is interspersed with handkerchief-sized plots of land and orchards, and small fishing cabins on stilts. The side of the levee protecting against floods is regularly inundated by the Tisza, yet the people living and working here see it not as a difficulty, but as the gift of life-giving water. While the settlements on the other side of the levee are plagued by precipitation-poor, hot, dry weather, here we encounter the abundance of nature. The protagonists of the short documentary "Wild Waterland" are fishermen, anglers, water retention experts, and perhaps the last floodplain farmers, who guide us through this unique landscape and tell stories about coexisting with the Tisza.

Levente Vargyasi: Sprinkling with a Sled in Székelytamásfalva
"In several villages of Kovászna and the Orbai district, the farmhands bring out a smaller type of forest plough, tie a large tow rope to it, and the servants harness themselves to it with smaller throwing ropes. Each lad also hangs a bell around his neck. They decorate the plough (with pine branches), place a box on it for the eggs and kalács (sweet bread), and a jug for pálinka (fruit brandy). One gets on the box on the plough and, cracking a whip loudly and shouting words like 'csa megide', 'moe', 'csaho', drives the others. At the houses with girls, they enter through the opened gate, and here the one cracking the whip, like the one entering, sprinkles the house girl, while the others sing and dance in the courtyard to Gypsy music. If they get wine, they drink it; the pálinka, after they have drunk enough of it, is poured into the jug, and the kalács and eggs received from the housewife or house girl are placed in the box, and with great merriment they continue on through the gate."
Quote from the collection of Márton Balázs, conducted between 1894–1905. (Ferenc Pozsony: Holidays in Háromszék, Kriza János Ethnographic Society, Kolozsvár, 2015)

2nd Prize

Zoltán Dénes: The Beginnings of the Táncház Movement in Kolozsvár, Transylvania
In the film, the founders from Kolozsvár recall the Transylvanian beginnings of the Táncház Movement. Levente Székely, István "Gázsa" Papp, and Árpád Könczei speak.

3rd Prize

László Kovács: The Cleansing Soot (Hope in Novaj)
Everyone hopes, at least in the small village of Novaj near Eger, at the tail end of the carnival. They drive away winter, sickness, and evil with the cleansing soot, blackening everyone they meet. The girls welcome the cheerful, musical mock wedding procession at the gates with treats, and in the evening they cook the many, many collected eggs, bacon, and sausages for a large communal dinner, followed by the ball, the "cuharé"... They await, they hope for spring... The good-natured company attracts many, many young people.

Special Prizes

Dr. Károly Kós Foundation:
Andor Fábián: Time-Grinding Watermills
The film presents the remaining watermills still found in Harghita County. We get to know the mill building in Homoródszentmárton under the guidance of ethnographer Árpád László. The story of the Korond Watermill Inn and Trout Farm is told by its owners: members of the Györfi family. The watermill in Gyergyóeszenyő has been tended by Rozália Goga for nearly a century. The operator of the watermill in Székelyvarság is Vencel Bálint, who represents the eleventh generation among the mill's heirs. Ethnographer Dénes Balázsi appears in the film, telling stories about the mills of times long past.

Hungarian Ethnographic Society:
Balázs Gergely: Eclipse
This animated film, based on original documents, presents a civilian perspective of the Great War through the correspondence between a husband fighting at the front and his wife who stayed at home.

Hungarian Open Air Museum:
László Kovács: For Whom the Bell Tolls - Architect Ernő Bogos
The career of Ernő Bogos, an architect from Székely Land, is defined by the diversity that characterizes the culture of his homeland. He stated this in his academic inaugural lecture: "I was born in Szépvíz, in the eastern tip of the Ciuc Basin, in the last side-street village of the road connecting Transylvania with Moldova, before the Ghimeș Pass. This was a world of people living in harmony with the landscape. Székelys, Armenians, beyond the mountain the Csángós of Gyimes, and the Romans, settled at the source of the Tatros and now Magyarized." His choice of profession was greatly influenced by his carpenter grandfather, whose example is reflected in his professional ars poetica: "for me, architecture means the kind of order-creation my grandfather represented, which contains all the life experience of our ancestors."

Museum of Ethnography:
Gábor Biczó - Henriett Szabó: Me and Imola
The theme of this documentary is an attempt to present a mother-daughter relationship interpreted specifically through the lens of a personal life journey. Its protagonist, in the light of her life story, analyzes the complex process that determined her relationship with her little daughter in every respect. The film guides the viewer through the pivotal points of the life journey to make visible the events, traumas, the details of coping with them, and the existential decisions, knowledge of which is a prerequisite for interpreting the life world of this two-person "family."

Youth Category

1st Prize
Hanna Peresztegi: Spoken Words
A film about homesickness. A comparison of Hungarian and American everyday life and life moments through the eyes of a student who has moved far away.

2nd Prize
Áron Marton: Relatives
Two boys meet at a bus stop. Although they are there for different reasons, their relationships with their relatives connect them. Both have their own relationship with their relatives, but while one's is cheerful and active, the other's is unpleasant and passive. This film is about the exchange of ideas and thoughts between these two characters. We learn about both persons' feelings, experiences with their family members, until the bus arrives.

The 2025 Stana creative camp and film festival was supported by the National Film Institute - Public Benefit Nonprofit Ltd.