Filmmaker Béla Tarr, master of 'slow' cinema, dies

Hungarian filmmaker Béla Tarr died at the age of 70 on Tuesday, according to a statement released by director Bence Fliegauf on behalf of the Tarr family to the Hungarian news agency MTI. The director made his film debut in 1979 and his last film was The Turin Horse, premiered in 2012. One of his best-known works is Satanic TangoThe film, shot in black and white and lasting over seven hours, tells the story of the failure and subsequent abandonment of a communist farm. It is based on the novel of the same name by the Hungarian author. László Krasznahorkai, winner of the 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature. Tarr is considered one of the masters of cinema slow and a true icon of modern auteur cinema.

Born on July 21, 1955, in the city of Pécs, he began his career as an amateur, and in 1977 he began his directing studies at the Higher School of Theater and Film, and later, in the 1980s, he worked at the state-owned film company Mafilm.

In an interview on the ARA in 2024Tarr, to whom the Filmoteca de Catalunya was dedicating a retrospective, explained that his entry into the world of cinema was thanks to his father, who gave him an 8mm camera. "It seemed like a good way to change the world. At 16, I made a very radical short film about Roma workers, and at 18 I wanted to get into the Faculty of Philosophy, but I was rejected because of my short films," he recalled.

Beyond Satanic Tangothe filmmaker and László Krasznahorkai They collaborated on several occasions. The films are also a result of this partnership. The sentence (1988), Werckmeister Harmonies (2000)The Man from London (2007) and The Turin HorseThe film with which the filmmaker retired. In an interview with ARA, Krasznahorkai confessed that he had only dedicated himself to filmmaking because of Tarr, as it was actually a field that didn't interest him much. "It all started on Easter Monday in 1985. While I was still sleeping off my hangover, someone banged violently on my door. 'Who could it be?' I wondered. Outside stood a guy in a leather jacket and tight pants, like David Bowie. He told me he had just read Satanic Tangowhich was banned at the time, and which he had loved. Perhaps I should have slammed the door in his face, but I didn't, and he invited me to see his films, which were brilliant," she recalled.

In March 2025, Tarr was recognized with the honorary award of the D'A - Barcelona Film Festivalwhere he offered a masterclass for students. In fact, in recent years he had dedicated part of his time to guiding young aspiring directors, although he denied being a film professor as such. "I don't teach film. I'm not a teacher, just a kind of advisor. I only help people younger and less experienced than me, I try to protect them from the film industry. At the school I founded in Sarajevo, my slogan was No education, just liberation [We don't educate, we only liberate.] Education is hell. The teacher comes and tells you what you have to believe! I'm sure they do the best they can, but... Maybe this education system is good for math or physics, but not for art, because art can't be taught," he said in the interview with ARA. "the most important of the moment."

One of the filmmakers who has acknowledged Tarr's influence is Pilar Palomero, director of The maternal and The girlsThe filmmaker dedicated herself to teaching for a time but abandoned it to participate in workshops organized by Tarr to make films in community in Sarajevo.