Neither Memory Nor Magic
The Life
and Times of Miklos Radnoti
A
Documentary Produced and Directed by Hugo Perez
Executive Produced by Greg Carr and Noble Smith
in collaboration with the Carr Foundation
Miklos Radnoti
From Dawn Until Midnight (1938)
I lived but, always being unskilled in life, I knew
Right from the start that in the end they’d bury me
–
That year silted on year, clod followed clod, stone stone,
And that, down there, the bones in cool, worm-ridden gloom
Would shiver in nakedness, when the body had overflowed.
That up there, time would blunder about my work with a
drone
As I sank deeper in the earth and into darkness...
All this I knew. But the work: will it have lasted?
---Miklos Radnoti
Synopsis:
In the spring of 1946, a mass grave was unearthed in the
Hungarian village of Abda. Twenty-two decayed bodies were
found sprawled in the pit. One of the bodies found in the
grave was that of the poet Miklos Radnoti, shot into the
grave by Hungarian fascists eighteen months earlier. Found
in the front pocket of his coat was a small notebook soaked
in his bodily fluids. It was laid out to dry in the
sunlight and when examined later revealed the poets last
poems carefully handwritten onto the ruled lines of the
notebook. In the so-called Bor Notebook, Radnoti, through
poetry, told the story of the last six months of his life,
months spent first as slave labor in a Nazi labor camp in
Bor, Serbia, and then on a three-month forced march from
Serbia to the small village of Abda where he was killed
when he was too weak to continue.
Radnoti’s final poems serve as the backbone of the
narrative of NEITHER MEMORY NOR MAGIC to reveal the story
of a poet who continued to write poetry even as he faced
almost certain death. Through the use of evocative and
lyrical Super8 footage, readings of the poems to represent
Radnoti’s account of his life, and interviews with
some of those who knew him best and who got to know him in
his last days, NEITHER MEMORY NOR MAGIC tells the story of
one poet’s triumph over the inhumanity of his age
–a story previously untold outside of Hungary.
NEITHER MEMORY NOR MAGIC is the feature documentary
directorial debut for award winning filmmaker Hugo Perez
whose work has been featured on HBO, Showtime, and PBS.
Neither Memory Nor Magic is narrated by ACADEMY AWARD®
Nominated actress Patricia Clarkson, edited by ACADEMY
AWARD® Nominated filmmaker Francisco Bello and Co-Edited by
ACADEMY AWARD® Nominated filmmaker Tim Sternberg. The
Executive Producers Greg Carr and Noble Smith most recently
executive produced Jessica Yu’s celebrated
documentary feature PROTAGONIST.
Read the Director's Statement about what led him to make
this film. Click Here
Ferenc Andai on the slope of a copper mine in Bor,
Serbia, the site of the labor camp where he first came to
know Radnoti in 1944 in what would be the last months of
Radnoti's life. Andai returned to Bor in 2005 for the first
time in 61 years. Pictured with him is Cinematographer
Chuck Moss.