Griffith filmmaker honoured on world stage

A powerful documentary by Griffith film lecturer Dr Peter Hegedus has won a prestigious international film award.

Lili took out Best Documentary at the Hungarian Film Critics Awards this week, after premiering at the Sydney Film Festival last year.

Dr Hegedus said making the film had been an enormously rewarding creative journey.

“To shed light on issues that affect millions around the globe has been a real honour and to have the film recognised on the world stage is particularly special,” he said.

The feature documentary follows a young mother who fled Hungary during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, leaving behind her first born child. Decades after she settled in Australia, Lili’s second daughter, Edie, began the search for her dislocated family, travelling across three continents to confront the past.

Dr Hegedus wrote and directed the film, which was shot in Hungary, Canada and Australia.

“This film is about how history shapes the fate of families,” he said.

“What happens to families who are torn apart and how that trauma is passed on to the next generation.”

A Griffith University alumnus, Peter is a senior lecturer and award-winning writer, director and producer whose films have garnered critical acclaim around the world. His documentary ‘Inheritance: A Fisherman’s Story’ was short-listed for an Academy Award in 2004.

Dr Hegedus received funding from Screen Australia, Screen Queensland, Griffith University, FocusFox Studio and Hungarian television to complete Lili.