{"id":160082,"date":"2025-08-20T03:33:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T03:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/160082\/"},"modified":"2025-08-20T03:33:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T03:33:10","slug":"sex-alcohol-white-horse-in-film-stars-of-little-importance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/160082\/","title":{"rendered":"Sex, Alcohol, White Horse in Film ‘Stars of Little Importance’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tSex, plenty of alcohol, girl talk, a white horse roaming the streets and stark black and white cinematography? Those are just some of the elements that Hungarian actor Ren\u00e1t\u00f3 Olasz brings to the screen in his feature directorial debut Stars of Little Importance (Minden Csillag), which examines nostalgia and loneliness. Executive produced by none other than Hungarian auteur B\u00e9la Tarr<\/a>, the movie, listed as a comedy but also containing drama, just world premiered in the competition lineup<\/a> of the 31st edition<\/a> of the Sarajevo Film Festival<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cA brother and sister return home from the capital for Christmas to reunite with childhood friends and first loves,\u201d reads a synopsis. \u201cThey hold a party. They drink heavily. Nothing is the same as before. But everything is good, right?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThrough the siblings\u2019 eyes, we observe an abandoned city, where time has frozen, and we experience some Hungarian rural destinies,\u201d it continues. \u201cThe siblings must face some questions: Where are they going now that they are 30 years old? Is this how they imagined their lives would be when they were teenagers?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOlasz and his co-dramaturg\u00a0Anna H\u00e1mor didn\u2019t write a script, opting instead to discuss with their cast key themes and scenes and leaving most up to improvisation. The cast consists of Olasz,\u00a0Andrea Waskovics,\u00a0Em\u0151ke P\u00e1l and J\u00e1nos Sz\u00e9n. Csaba B\u00e1nt\u00f3 handled cinematography, with Judit Czak\u00f3 as editor and music courtesy of \u00c1d\u00e1m M\u00e9sz\u00e1ros.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe producer of Stars of Little Importance is Genov\u00e9va Petrovits of Kino Alfa.<\/p>\n

\n\tTHR asked Olasz about adding feature directing to his resume, how he handled the double duty of director and actor, his relationship with Tarr and how he made the movie on a low budget with little hope for support from Hungary\u2019s government.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe filmmaker doesn\u2019t see his new directing credit as a big leap from his acting work. \u201cI hold a Master\u2019s Degree in directing. I finished school before going to acting school, but from my very young age, including in high school, which had a drama class, I directed a lot of theatrical plays and also acted in [them],\u201d he explained. \u201cSo, I have this passion for creating, and I wanted to transform that into the filmmaking process. And I like creating in a community.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOlasz met Tarr when the latter taught a workshop in Budapest. \u201cSince then, we have been friends, and he\u2019s my mentor, my master,\u201d Olasz told THR. \u201cHe has supported me through the whole film process. Unfortunately, he is currently in a hospital due to a health issue and can\u2019t be here, but he has been texting me. We really, really like each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThere is really only one core lesson he learned from Tarr. \u201cB\u00e9la teaches only one thing: just be yourself,\u201d he explained. \u201cJust do what you really feel like and don\u2019t give a shit about any rules.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOne of the inspirations for the film and shooting it in the town where Olasz was born came on a scouting trip. \u201cMy cinematographer and I are really good friends, and we were on a location scout for another project in our hometown one night, and we just drove through. I asked him to make a recording of the street,\u201d the director recalled. \u201cAnd when we saw the footage, we just realized that this city is fucking empty and everything has changed. You know, it just looks like a movie set or something like that. And it\u2019s this experience that just depressed me. It was like a punch to my face. Everybody moved abroad or to the capital. It was crazy, but that feeling inspired me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOne thing hasn\u2019t changed, however: the pub that features prominently in the film is where Olasz spent much of his young life. \u201cThe actual pub was the pub of my childhood and my teenage years,\u201d says Olasz. \u201cAnd it\u2019s true what I say at the beginning of the movie \u2014\u00a0that my parents fell in love at that bar. It looks the same as it did 40 years ago. Nothing has changed. Time just stopped there. So that\u2019s why I chose this place, because it has a lot of memories in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDespite this being his first feature, Olasz was adamant about working without a script. \u201cI wanted to try my own method. And because of my background in theater, I really like to create with the actors, the dramaturg, and the DOP from the very beginning,\u201d Olasz told THR. \u201cSo we figured out the themes, topics and characters with each other. I created tons of notes, but we really only had ideas for scenes but no dialogue. Every day, we met at the location, talked about what we wanted to shoot that day and what we wanted to express in the scenes, and we figured it all out.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tKey themes that the creatives wanted to explore include \u201cnostalgia and melancholy,\u201d Olasz said. \u201cBut it was my aim to combine poetic cinematic language with really raw, naturalistic stuff. I just miss movies with stuff from real life, you know, everybody vomiting or using dirty words. It\u2019s just a part of life, and not just the depressive stuff, but also the humor and jokes and everything. I like movies which are full of life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOlasz cited John Cassavetes as one of his favorite filmmakers. \u201cI really like how he handled real life, how we exist, how we behave,\u201d he said. \u201cI like to just observe this kind of thing.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tSo what is the meaning of the white horse shown repeatedly throughout the movie? \u201cThere is no exact meaning. I\u2019m not philosophical,\u201d the filmmaker told THR. \u201cI wanted something emotional for the audience\u2019s brain and soul. The white horse could be a dream, it could be reality, it could be anything. The meaning depends on you. I\u2019m not bullshitting. I did not want to give any meaning to it to let the audience members think and feel what they want.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDoes Olasz have a new idea for a second feature as a director? \u201cI have an idea,\u201d he told THR, but mentioned that money remains a challenge. \u201cWe created this movie without much money, so I tried to work in a low-budget way, not a no-budget way,\u201d he said. In Hungary, \u201cit\u2019s impossible\u201d to get funding due to the right-wing government of Viktor Orb\u00e1n, Olasz said. \u201cIf you are not loyal to the government, you can\u2019t get any money. If you are not a propagandist, you can\u2019t get money. It\u2019s really hard to work in Hungary under these kinds of circumstances.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sex, plenty of alcohol, girl talk, a white horse roaming the streets and stark black and white cinematography?…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":160083,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[171,1801,53,89809,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-160082","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-international","10":"tag-movies","11":"tag-sarajevo-film-festival","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115058993219093597","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160082\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}