Hungarian film director Bala Tarr died at the age of 71 after a long and serious illness, his family announced.
Tarr was one of the most prominent directors of European auteur cinema. Many of his works were created in collaboration with the recipient of the 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature, writer Laszlo Krasznahorkai.
He became known for films such as Satantango from 1994, which lasted more than seven hours, and Werckmeister Harmonies from 2000.
The European Film Academy announced that it “mourns an exceptional director and a personality with a strong political voice, who is deeply respected not only by his colleagues but also celebrated by audiences around the world.”
His films are often described as mesmerizing and philosophical, with carefully choreographed, long, uninterrupted takes.
Tarr received an honorary award at the European Film Awards ceremony in 2023.
In 2011, he won the Grand Jury Prize at the Berlin Film Festival for the film The Turin Horse.
Bela Tarr was also a great friend of the Sarajevo Film Festival: in 2006, the “Tribute to” program was dedicated to him, along with a retrospective of his selected films. He was the recipient of the Honorary Heart of Sarajevo at the 19th Sarajevo Film Festival (2013), and in 2014, he served as president of the jury of the Feature Film Competition Program.
