How did you get to know the family featured in the film, and how did you start filming with them? Who first came up with the idea of giving Alfréd a camera?

I was preparing for the shooting of a short fiction film in Alfi's village, which at the time was still a rather closed-off world, so news spread like wildfire whenever a stranger appeared. When his parents heard that I was from Cluj-Napoca, they sought to connect with me because Alfi was about to start school in Cluj. The nearest special school for hearing-impaired children was there, about 400 kilometers away from Gyímesközéplok, Alfi’s village. His parents knew that they would only be able to visit him rarely and wanted to ensure that on weekends — when most children were taken home by their parents — Alfi wouldn’t be left alone at the institution but would have a family to take him home from time to time and attend to him. That was exactly what happened. Alfi’s parents helped me a lot with my various film projects in Gyímes, while my parents often took Alfi out of the institution.

I once saw a short cultural news piece on TV about a photography workshop for the hearing impaired. The idea stuck with me, and I told Alfi’s parents that when he got a little older, I would teach him photography, which, back in the analog era, was considered quite a privilege. Later, as I learned that the photographer in the neighboring village (Gyímesfelsőlok) was also deaf, it became clear to me that it shouldn’t be me teaching Alfi photography  — he should learn from this photographer, and I should be filming the process. I bought the camera and gave it to the photographer, instructing him to pass it on to Alfi at a certain point. It was also my idea to introduce them, but it wasn’t a major intervention in reality since the photographer served the entire region, meaning that they would have eventually met at a wedding or baptism – though at that time photographers were being hired less frequently for events due to the rise of soapbox-like compact cameras. It was me to suggest to Alfi’s parents that it would be good for him to meet the photographer during some kind of a festive occasion, and they came up with the idea of celebrating his mother’s birthday and inviting the photographer for the occasion. Alfi was happy to meet someone in his social environment with whom he could communicate fluently in sign language.  

What specific pedagogical or other intentions, considerations were behind this?

I focus on feelings and experiences similar to which I have also lived through. Who hasn’t felt as a child that their environment doesn’t understand or appreciate them enough? Who hasn’t felt at a disadvantage compared to other children? And who hasn’t wanted to prove they are more valuable or intelligent than their immediate surroundings perceive them to be? Who hasn’t wished to be in a privileged position for once? In these ways, I completely identified with Alfi.  

On the other hand, we live in a world where positive attributes tend to be associated with other positive attributes (for example, if someone is beautiful, people assume they are also smart). Conversely, if someone has a disability, people assume it comes with other disabilities — such as associating hearing impairment with intellectual disability. I wanted to break down this stereotype. I wanted Alfi to show that he was, in fact, more intelligent than many non-hearing-impaired individuals. 

How did the experience of taking photographs impact Alfréd? Did his school in Cluj-Napoca encourage his photography later on?

It’s hard for me to judge how this positive life experience affected Alfi’s personality development — not just the photography itself but also the fact that a film was made about him. It likely had no negative impact, as it was important for him both within his village community and his school community. He wasn’t a great student; he was too hyperactive for the standard curriculum to hold his attention. At the school, I met excellent and dedicated teachers who put immense effort into their work, but they were too few to give every student the attention they needed. So, they didn’t have the resources to further encourage him in photography. Later, with my friends, we organized an animation workshop at his school, led by my acquaintance, animation director Zsuzsa Szabó, but it remained a one-time experience for the participants. The behind-the-scenes film about the workshop, as well as the films created by the children, can be viewed on this link.

What kind of relationship developed between the family and the crew? And how did Alfréd feel about not only taking pictures himself but also being filmed?

A normal human relationship developed between the family and the crew. I believe a documentary filmmaker has a responsibility to their subjects. I consider it a very lowly approach to pretend to be someone’s friend just to get them to open up, only to disappear afterward and not care about their problems anymore. Of course, life can take us in different directions, and we may drift apart, but that wasn’t the case here. When Alfi was in vocational school and had the freedom to move around the city after classes, he spent every afternoon at my parents' house.

As for the effect of the camera, Alfi pretty much “stole” the art of image-making from the crew. There’s a scene in the film where the party continues inside the house at night, and we film from outside. The next day, Alfi sent his friend inside, told him to stand at the window and pull back the curtain, and photographed him from outside. The film also captures a moment where, when he runs out of things to photograph, an idea sparks in his mind, and he stages this shot. It seems very likely to me that he learned from observing what and how we filmed. He also staged photos on the riverside — not in the traditional posed style he must have been familiar with from life events, but in a more cinematic manner, similar to the previously mentioned short film we had shot a year earlier. For example, he positioned a little girl and had her run across the stream while he photographed her in motion. But he also attempted to capture unstaged, spontaneous life moments — such as when his friend unexpectedly arrived on horseback. At first, he didn’t stop him but quickly tried to adjust the camera to take a candid shot. This is something that affects the deaf: since they cannot hear, they are forced to gather information from visual cues. Additionally, because their hearing environment generally cannot communicate with them effectively, they are even more reliant on reading visual signals. As a result, their observational skills are highly developed, and they can interpret details that others wouldn’t even notice. It was fascinating to witness this during the animation workshop we held at the institute. While brainstorming, a teacher who was fluent in sign language translated for them, but the students signed so rapidly that even though the interpreter spoke as fast as possible, he couldn’t keep up in real-time. This moment is also captured in the behind-the-scenes film of the animation workshop.

What objectives — whether in terms of film aesthetics or otherwise — did you pursue? During the editing process, which aspects of the story and which qualities of the characters did you aim to highlight?

Back then, I was specifically interested in documentary films where the action unfolds in cinematic present time, right in front of the camera — just like in fiction films. I was drawn to stories where the focus wasn’t a general issue (theme) but rather a protagonist with their own specific problems, mirroring the dramatic structure of fiction films. The reason for this is that I primarily studied fiction filmmaking, and my mind was attuned to narrative storytelling in that style. The only difference between fiction films and this kind of observational, situational documentary (to borrow Tamás Almási’s words) is that in one, I compose (invent) the story, while in the other, I expose (discover) it. At the same time, we were experiencing a revolutionary period in filmmaking technology, as small yet sufficiently high-quality digital cameras had just become available. These allowed for quick shifts in perspective and made it possible to shoot scenes in a way that they could be edited according to fiction film conventions. In real life, there is often a longer gap between action and reaction than in films, and this moment can be used to change the camera’s perspective. Our key goal was to tell a story following the principles of classic linear dramaturgy. Within this framework, documentaries generally have a disadvantage compared to fiction films in that they rely on less dynamic action. However, their strength lies in seemingly irrelevant details and microscopic events — the so-called peripheral content. So, aside from storytelling, we focused on capturing these seemingly insignificant yet intrinsically meaningful details — both during filming and in the editing process.  

As for highlighting the characters' traits, when someone entrusts you with their confidence, it would be unethical to show something in the film that they would not want to reveal about themselves. If a subject lacks camera-consciousness, I also believe it would be unethical to exploit that. In other words, a subject should never be stripped of their human dignity. The aforementioned peripheral contents already hint at certain issues, and if someone cannot interpret these details, or doesn’t enjoy the experience of interpreting them, then this type of film is simply not for them.  

I would like to accentuate that this is not a staged film. Certain situations were indeed generated, but within those, the participants were never told what to do or how to respond. Instructing them in such a direct way would eliminate those subtle peripheral elements that make the film work. Generating a situation — such as saying “let’s go down to the riverbank” (and then letting them do whatever they want) — is, in my view, a much smaller intrusion into reality than asking someone a question and then editing their response as if it were spontaneous. That would be false, because the person likely wouldn’t have voluntarily said what they did. To me, asking a question is a strong form of provocation. Passing off a reaction as an action is deception – a lie. Ultimately, we don’t get to know a character primarily through their actions, but through their reactions. A random action doesn’t reveal what thoughts lie behind it. But if that action is a reaction to something, then we have a point of reference, making it easier to decode what might be going on in the subject’s mind.

What happened to the developed photos? Did Alfréd continue taking pictures after the events of the film?

The photos got lost. We couldn’t find the negatives. And Alfi didn’t continue taking pictures. It was just a summer adventure. To continue, he would have needed more encouragement and a more focused effort. We're talking about a ten-year-old kid! ...who dreams of riding a bike, a motorcycle, and driving a car! And of becoming a football star or a pop star, with everyone clapping for him. What matters to him is the recognition of his immediate environment, so he tries to align with its values. We are talking about a ten-year-old with normal social thinking — we shouldn't expect adult-level reasoning from him. He would have had the opportunity to continue because I organized the animation workshop at his school for his sake. I had hoped he would become a central figure in it. But he wasn’t interested, because his classmates weren’t interested either. That’s the reason he appears in the film only briefly. And I didn’t want to force it. Meanwhile, the digital era arrived. Digital cameras kept improving and swept away the magic of analog photography. As for Alfi, he became a bricklayer — a really good one, a meticulous and respected professional. And he’s a kind-hearted young man.

More than twenty years have passed since the film was made — how would you approach presenting a similar story in today’s radically transformed visual culture?

Probably not at all. As I’ve already mentioned, digital technology has washed away the magic of analog. If Alfi were given a digital camera today, it wouldn’t mean the same thing, nor would it provide the same experience. If he started shooting on analog, that would mean something entirely different again. And right now, I can’t think of anything that would be both appealing to a ten-year-old, engage his intellectual abilities and creativity, encourage human interaction, and yet not be widely accessible — in other words, something that would feel like a small miracle weapon in his hands within his immediate environment.