Exhibition accompanying László Nemes’ film Orphan
Curator: Szabolcs Barakonyi, photographer
Basic concept: Gábor Böszörményi
Visual designer: Márton Ágh
Sound: Tamás Zányi
Exhibition on show untill April of 2026 in Budapest at Kiscelli Museum.
A few decades ago it seemed that the time of videos had come and that photography had declined. Yet everyone continued to take photos. Later, it seemed we preferred to share our personal stories with each other through still images, and it turned out that history can be recalled better with a few minute-long animations when photos are shaken and algorithmically edited. The shifts affecting moving and still images are related to changes in attention, and this applies equally to family documents and history captured in pictures.
A major question concerns what can be regarded as fixed. Experience shows that sources are questioned, the effect of facts on public opinion is diminishing, and verifying credibility has become a personal task. Instinctive trust in photo documents is disappearing, while the scientific means of knowledge including photography are replaced by personal beliefs. The documentary status of pictures has become malleable because we exist in the world of still and moving images made without light and popping up and disappearing exclusively on electronic displays. Thus films look for certainties in such an interrelated system in which the definition of not only reality but also fiction is uncertain.
The story of Orphan is only partly fiction. The basic idea of the film was provided by a real family story. The script writers not only endeavoured to present a historical era faithfully, but also tried to preserve the authenticity of personal, family lives. To reconstruct the environment, the film makers conducted a thorough investigation emphatically based on photographs. That was basically determined by online photo search engines and accessible photo archives, primarily Fortepan, Hungary’s largest privately owned photo collection, which is freely available to everyone.
However, not only existing photographs were used. The story’s own documents were also created for the reality of Orphan. Each of the old images made anew and appearing in the story had a great significance. The traces recorded on photos and connected to the characters’ past influenced their emotions and actions. Where they still exist family photo albums illustrate the identity-forming power of photography: they support internal memory and systemize the history of generations. There are always a few early memories tucked away in them, such that some people can only remember because there are pictures taken of those moments.
For the exhibition we have finally used about 700 photographs as authenticated documents of various realities. The production teamselected Fortepan’s images for the preparation of the film and classified them in thematic files. We have narrowed them down further. In addition to the archive we are also displaying the werk photos taken with digital cameras by Lenke Szilágyi, Dmitry Zhukov and Szabolcs Barakonyi, as well as the stopped images exposed on celluloid with the camera by Mátyás Erdély, the director of photography. He is also the author of the only moving pictures: this is the quadruply exposed cut of the visionary scene in the film, with original and uncut footage. A couple of internationally famous photographs by Ernst Haas and Saul Leiter can also be seen in the exhibition. László Nemes referred to the two artists by name in his director’s notes. In addition, three photos are on display which have a function in the film. While preparing for the exhibition a family photograph also turned up taken by András Jeles but had never been enlarged. This single image itself is able to represent the family history, providing the basic idea of the film in a condensed form.
Szabolcs Barakonyi 