Page - 88 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 03/02

88 | Charles Martig www.jrfm.eu 2017, 3/2, 85–89 raordinary moments of communication with these people because if they wanted to make this work right they really had to understand the depth of the film. On Body and Soul was like a fragile princess. the slightest fake or not rightly balanced gesture could ruin the whole thing. even during the grading, it was not about aesthetics but about the meaning of the scene. We were talking about Mária’s feelings and how her world is changing. How did your actors respond to your insights and your working procedures? We had very good communication between the actors and me as director. you have to get to know them and understand how they communicate. the special thing on the film set was that the whole crew was so deeply immersed in the film. With Alex- andra Borbély the work was very symbiotic. i barely had to tell her anything during the shooting. We did all the work beforehand. it was really nice to see her way not of trying to understand Mária and then play the role but of finding the body and the soul of this character. Géza Morcsányi, who plays the chief financial officer of the slaught- erhouse, and Alexandra Borbély in her role as a quality controller are very different. In the love story of these two characters I was barely required to make major changes in their acting. in-between smaller corrections were necessary. this is due to my ap- proach to film-making as a holistic workflow. Is your film-making truthful? yes, absolutely. it is a priority in my cinematography. How was On Body and Soul received by the audience? after the excellent response at the Berlin international film festival where it won several prizes, we presented the film in Hungary in the first week of March 2017 and it is still in cinemas. This is definitely a long-term presence in cinemas. What about its release in other countries? The film brought a far larger audience than the production company had expected. Several countries in Europe are releasing the film in the autumn, Germany, Great Bri- tain, France and the Scandinavian countries, for example. The film will be shown in nearly every european country. The starting point of this success was in Berlin? A prize can help launch a film, of course. But afterwards it can’t really endorse the promotion. What was very rewarding – for all us who made this film – was the direct response to On Body and Soul. in discussions with audiences after screenings, i re- ally made an effort to connect not on an intellectual but on a sensitive level. I tried to make the point that sensitivity and the soul are somehow the same.