HOVATOVÁBB (Further On)

The political and cultural monthly Beszélő is organizing HOVATOVÁBB (Further On) Festival between November 30 and December 14.

HOVATOVÁBB is a festival where Roma artists and engaged anti-racist artists cooperate, and the festival's featured guest is the Igazgyöngy Foundational Art School from Berettyóújfalu.

The festival wishes to draw attention to the excellent, efficient work foundational schools do in educating disadvantaged children. These schools will be deprived of most of their resources in 2012, and their future is at risk.

The festival showcases successful and effective initiatives, whether they are connected to education (such as the Igazgyöngy School and the Dr. Ambedkar School from Sajókaza) or connected to art, literature, social welfare (such Romaversitas ), or culture (such as the book by Pál Závada and Péter Korniss on successful Hungarian Roma, or the New Spectator project of Árpád Schilling and Krétakör Theatre).

The program includes music (Ádám Fischer, Akkezdet Phiai, Romano Glaszo etc.), contemporary theater (Krétakör), documentary film (Csaba Szekeres’s Örvény [Vortex], György Pálos’s Ahogy te akarod [As You Wish]), art and photo exhibitions (exhibition of contemporary Roma painters; photos of János Vachter about the region of the Igazgyöngy Art School and exhibition of the drawings by the school’s pupils), evening discussions and a round-table conference (with sociologists Zsuzsa Ferge, Gábor Havas, art historian Tímea Junghaus etc.), a literary evening (with Pál Závada, Péter Esterházy, Lajos Parti Nagy, Krisztina Tóth, Tamás Jónás, Mihály Vajda etc.), and a children’s program.

The festival will end with an auction for the benefit of Igazgyöngy Art School. The internationally renowned conductor Ádám Fischer and Gyula Váradi, the young Roma violinist talent, will give a joint charity concert as well.

Children from Berettyóújfalu and from Sajókaza are invited with their teachers to spend the first five days of the festival in Budapest. Apart from sightseeing programs, they will be involved in staging a theater production which they will perform during the festival.

The venues of the festival are the Open Society Archives (November 30 – December 4), Vízraktér (December 11) and FUGA Budapest Center of Architecture (December 14).


Igazgyöngy Foundational Art School gathers 670 children from 23 villages of the Berettyójfalu region (South-East Hungary). Nearly 70% of these children come from poor and disadvantaged, mainly Roma families, and 160 children live in deep poverty. The children's needs for self-expression are at the heart of the alternative pedagogic methods Igazgyöngy School has developed. Each child is supported to develop their own depictive world through individualized exercises. This is meant to maximize the child's interest and motivation. The positive effects of fostering creativity in children assist development across other areas as well. The pupils of Igazgyöngy School have won several prizes with their unique, colorful drawings.


Programs in English

November 30
OSA, V. ker. Arany János utca 32.

7.30 p.m.
Vortex (Örvény) by Csaba Szekeres and John Oates. (With English subtitles.)
Filmed over a period of six months, this social documentary feature film shows the lives of Roma families in a small village in Hajdú-Bihar county, North-East Hungary, close to the Romanian border. Unemployment is close to 100% in this community, and the isolation, poverty and discrimination against Roma create a situation in which families find it hard to live decent lives. The film focuses on the experiences of three families, following the various hardships and setbacks they faced over this period. Problems of illness, poor living conditions, lack of basic amenities and even house collapse are combined with fears of children being taken into care, with ever-present challenges of finding enough food, and wood to heat their houses. This creates a situation in which hope is hard to find and in which children suffer just as much as the adults. Solutions are not simple or easy, and the local services struggle to find ways to help these people out of their desperate plights.

8.50 p.m.
Round table discussion with the makers of Vortex and with György Pálos, the director of As You Wish (Ahogy te akarod), a documentary presenting the work of the Igazgyöngy Art School, and Nóra L. Ritók, the school’s founder. The discussion is led by Péter Szuhay. (With translation.)


December 3
OSA, V. ker., Arany János utca 32.

7 p.m.

A concert with Romano Glaszo, Zsuzsi Ujj and Kristóf Darvas, Khamoro, Akkezdet Phiai
Concertmaster: Péter Vallai

December 4
OSA, V. ker. Arany János utca 32

5.00 p.m.
As You Wish (Ahogy te akarod) by György Pálos. (With English subtitles.)
The documentary was shot in Eastern Hungary, one of the poorest regions of the country. The Igazgyöngy Civil Organization operates here and has developed into a chain of art schools. Their mission is to offer afternoon art classes to schoolchildren, where instead of compulsory tasks, all kids can rely on their own experiences and draw whatever they would like. These children are able to participate in drawing contests and even travel to other places. These opportunities offer them highly motivational new experiences which may be of some help in their struggle to deal with their disadvantaged situation, as the biggest handicap in this community is the lack of aims, role models, and wishes, which cannot be remedied with any common labor programs or social aids. The main character of the film is the school founder and leader art pedagogue, Nóra L. Ritók, who undertakes to address those welfare tasks that are not dealt with by the council and other local authorities. Her aim is to help the families achieve a basic structure and a higher standard of living.