FemmeFilmFest20 Interview: El Mago Georges maestro Katalin Egely

At the 2018 Femme Filmmakers Festival, a flourishing filmmaker, Katalin Egely, brought two short animations to the online event. Alegría and Land Without Evil demonstrated an infectious depiction of nature in many forms and through many creative techniques. Land Without Evil was such a hit with our jury that the film won four prizes including the grand prize, The Gold Sovereign.

Two years later, the Hungarian filmmaker returns to FemmFilmFest20, this time with El Mago Georges – again in the Competition Selection. I got the blessing of speaking to Kati once again. And yet again, I found her extremely fascinating as a person and an artist. I remember I loved talking to her the last time, and feel I have been inspired even more.

Check the full conversation below (all links open in new tab.

FILMOTOMY: So where are you now and what are you doing?

KATALIN EGELY: I live in Budapest. I’ve been traveling a lot these last years, and lately I feel that I want to slow down and have a base where I can work, concentrate and settle down. So I am building my new home physically and emotionally.

Your film El Mago Georges shows a vast love for the natural world. What is it you love about these themes?

Actually this time I didn’t want to talk about nature but about a very human story. I use animals and nature to show our elemental and pure parts, and because it’s more beautiful and colorful than people in the cities.

The film is very similar to the excellent Land Without Evil, how do you maintain that consistency and style through such detailed animation?

Do you think it’s very similar? Then it’s because I may have a style that I don’t even recognize. For me, El Mago is very different, more experimental since I’ve used different mediums.

I was experimenting with acryl, crayon, tempera, nail polish… I tried many different textures until I found what I liked. When I feel that I am repeating myself I always try to change and find new techniques.

In this case, accompanying the state of mind of the protagonist, there are more and more dimensions; starting from 2D drawing-painting on paper through cut out until puppet. El Mago primarily is made for adults. It was not my intention to make a children’s movie when I was working on Land Without Evil neither. But it’s still, after three years, in several children’s film festivals. Maybe I am a bit childish.

I am just kidding, they both have messages for children and adults too.

What is El Mago Georges about in your eyes? How did you get the idea?

This is a very long story, but I will try to be short.

Georges, the son of Robin (El Búho) was born when he was working on the new EP Pleamar with Pedro (Chancha Vía Circuito). I didn’t know Robin before, but for many years I was listening to and loving his music. Pedro sent me the new tracks and when I choose El Mago Georges he told me about Robin’s son, Georges, who will be a magician (mago in Spanish).

Since I started to teach animation in an art school, being with teenagers again, I remembered all those very very difficult decisions that we have to take on the way to becoming adults. So I immediately knew that I wanted to make a coming of age story in a spiritual way. I was looking for the oldest definition and the origin of the word ‘magician’, and what I found I can interpret as we all can be magicians if we’re brave enough to follow our intuition.

Basically, this is the story, the trip until we find and love ourselves again as we did when we were kids in a spontaneous way – but as adults we have to work on this self-love consciously to not stay in the passive victim role.

Tell us about the music. How do you choose the music and what is the process of hiring artists?

Hiring artists is still the future!

I choose the musicians who are hiring me. I started to listen to Chancha Vía Circuito eight years ago, and this music still inspires me a lot. Even more after traveling and living in those beautiful places where this music comes from.

I wrote to Pedro many years ago when I was living in Buenos Aires, asking him if he wanted me to make an animated music video. It didn’t happen soon, but three years after. Our first work was ‘Alegría’, which at some point will be always my favorite.

It’s hard to express how grateful am I to him because of all the inspiration and trust. Giving me the possibility to make an animation for my two favorite musicians was a dream becoming reality.

What is your working routine when it comes to animation? Who do you collaborate with? How long does it take? What materials and equipment do you use?

I don’t really have a routine. When it’s a music video I listen to the music many times, sand my imagination starts creating. When I have the basic idea, I start to work on the storyboard and on the design. I make some tests and when I find the style and the technique that I think fixes the best with the topic, I start the preparation and animation process – generally before I would have a completely clear idea about the end of the story. This way I can also surprise myself.

Since I work alone I don’t necessarily need to make animatic and plan everything in detail. Generally, one minute animation takes one month of work. In an ideal case, I would like to have half-year for one music video but usually I don’t have this time.

To make the color correction now I asked an Argentinian friend, and for my new film I asked another animator to help me with the drawings. It’s still new for me to work with people, but it was the time for it. It is not good to make everything alone, I like it when people inspire each other.

Can you recommend us any other animations or filmmakers who work in the same field as you?

My friend and colleague Peter Vacz. And there are some animators I like very much; everything from Dante Zaballa, Anete Melece, Isabel Herguera, the short film ‘Negative Space’ from Max Porter & Ru Kuwahata and two painters; Miroko Machiko and Paula Duró.

Why do you love animation? What were your favourite animated films growing up?

It was a long way until I started to study animation. In high school I studied leather design, later scenography in the Hungarian Fine Arts University, which was really bad so I left. And luckily in the same year I got into Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design and I made the BA of animation. I didn’t stay for the master because I already wanted to move to South America and study documentary film-making, and I did it in Buenos Aires.

I chose animation because it’s the most complex genre. I have to create the story, the design, the rhythm, the characters… it’s really a lot of work, but there are so many fields in one process that I never get bored. It’s always a challenge. And I really love to work with music.

I never watched television when I was a kid, or later either. My parents would tell me all the time ‘let’s go outside to play or read instead’ and I actually appreciate it. This way my fantasy wasn’t destroyed in the early years. But I remember that once, accidentally I saw Moomin and I fell in love immediately. I also liked later some Hungarian animations, a series made from Hungarian folk tales.

What are your plans next for filmmaking? Are you working on anything now?

I just started a new project; an interpretation of the chapter ‘Mud Shadows’ from one of the ‘Don Juan’ books from Castaneda. I’ve been asked for this project almost a year ago, but it’s a huge challenge and I feel that I had/have to be more conscious, patient, aware, mature and silent to understand the message first and then interpret it visually. I can’t talk about something that I don’t understand. But I am on the way now…