My mother claims I was born because Stalin died. Life could only get better after that. When we left Hungary I was three and a half years old. I don't remember this episode in my life.

My parents belonged to a group of intellectuals and artists which grouped around three Hungarian philosophers; during Stalinist times they were able to do their religious and philosophical reasearch only in the private domain and in secret; they only talked about mathematics.

Forty years after our escape I drove mother, father, sister and brother to Hungary, trying to find traces of life before and after the revolution.

Using archive footage and personal memories AMOR FATI conveys striking moments in Hungarian history between 1945 and 1956, illustrating how differently people experienced Stalinism, the revolution, the escape. Children or parents, man or woman, everyone experienced the same period in very different ways.

Belgium - the first seven years after the escape.

A tale recording the disintegration of a family in exile.

The film deals with the inner dynamics of the family and contextualizes its development. Father, mother, sister, brother and I talk about our first years in Belgium, where we were accepted as political refugees.

A tale of different perspectives about parents who drift apart and separate. An attempt to initiate a dialogue between children and parents about traumatic times.

A story of separation where the father eventually leaves the mother and three children to fend for themselves. The adult children remember the disintegration of the family. After many years the father is asking for a reconciliation. Each member of the family has their own way of dealing with the situation, and yet, a common spirit prevails.

Today, family members live in different European cities, in different cultures, speak different languages. The idea of ,Home' has a different ring to it for each one of them.

Remembering is like repairing a broken mirror. Some bits come together again, others don't fit any longer, there are dark areas. One verbalizes as much as one can stand emotionally. Remembering and filming are nothing more than the recording of a split second. Nothing is absolute, everything is transitory. I hope this becomes obvious in the film. There must be space for the inexpressible, it's the only way of making a film such as this. I owe my parents this sense of respect for the inexpressible.

(Sophie Kotanyi)

Sophie Kotanyi was born in Budapest in 1953. After the escape from Hungary in 1957 she grew up in Brussels. Since 1971 she has been living in Berlin, where she graduated from the Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie (German Film and Televison Academy). During the shooting of Kapverdische Inseln Unabhängig she lived in West Africa for a length of time. In 1976 she founded the Pico Film Coop. Meanwhile she is living in Berlin again, working as a director of documentaries, television and independent productions.

1976-1978: Kapverdische Inseln Unabhängig. 1982: Tchom (mit G. Heidrich und U. Frohnmeyer). 1983: Schwarz Weiss Malerei (Abschlußfilm DFFB, 40 Min.). 1985: Dis moi Marie (Porträt der Schriftstellerin Marie Denis, 30 Min.); Einklang. 1985-86: Beiträge für das Tanzmagazin von TTT (HR). 1986-1991: Langzeitbeobachtung in Guinea-Bissau (West-Afrika): Djarama Boe, Yaray Yesso. 1991-1994: Lieber nach Osten als nach Kanada (Langzeitdokumentation). 1983-1997: AMOR FATI.