Writers in America after World War I were called as the lost generation, relating to their endless, general disillusionment, since the war ended the happy times of peace – and their illusions, too. The Russian director, Sergei Miroshnichenko made an original film series about the „last Soviet generation” born in 1983 and does not leave any doubt that every large historic event raises a new lost generation, no matter which country is spoken about. However, the Russian director thinks about those of his own not as the ones who are lost, but he sees in them the hope for change. We met Sergei Miroshnichenko on the IXth Verzió International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival held at the beginning of November in Budapest.  

Along the lines of the British Up film series, your film series, Born in the USSR is also shot in every 7 year following the life of children since 1990, when they were 7. Why did you choose this form of story-telling?

There is a Jesuit saying: give me a 7-year-old child and I will say what kind of man he will be. The personality of a man is already formed in this age, and it changes in every 7 year. For example, the age between 21 and 28 is very determinant in our lives, some philosophies say that this is the age of embodiment. It is important that these participants do not become actors, because they forget about the film during the 7 years. In each 7 year the shot lasts 4 days so they do not get used to the camera. In the film all of them get only 11 minutes in which we have to condense 7 years.

How did you select the participants?

The only common thing in their life is that all of them were born in a country that does not exist anymore: in the Soviet Union. And all of them were born in 1983. At the casting, 18 children were selected out of 2000 7-year-olds, and the main criterion was that they must be able to speak in front of the camera. They are already 28 years old and their lives have changed in very different ways, many of them live in faraway countries. In fact, this film series has become a kind of sociological research, and is not exactly about happiness. Out of the 18 people only 4 has a strong, cohesive family. Some of them are raising their children alone, some of them are divorced. One-third of the participants face with psychical crisis, alcohol- or drug problems. But still we are lucky that all of them are alive: according to the statistics one fourth should not be.

What are the chances of young people getting involved in politics? Is it boring? Or interesting? Only those deal with it who are really passionate about politics? Or should we all be interested because it is our responsibility? Questions like these were answered by our French and Belgian guests on the last day of Sziget.

We return right back to the starting point: what is politics? If it is what it is, why does not everyone take part in it? Why does not everyone have an opinion, take a stand, debate or have a say in public affairs?  Vincent, a PhD student at the University of economics of Budapest, says that the society was push to become apolitical. For example, he mentions the alienating techniques of the Kádár era to depoliticize the society: "don't care about politics, we will provide you what you need" . This depoliticization was accented with the false illusion of individualism promoted by capitalism and consumerism.  According to him, we manage to make the people, in particular the youngest, to believe that politics only consists on elections and the party system. Despite this he thinks that the Hungarian youths can be and will have to be repoliticized soon considering the upcoming crises.

The Copyright Violations of the 21st Century

In the age of the Internet it is getting more and more natural to download and freely use available contents, although most of the texts, films, videos and pictures on the internet are under copyright protection. But many of us do not know or do not want to know about this.

On the second day of the Sziget Festival 2012. we invited Anett Pogácsás, associate professor at Pázmány Péter Catholic University and Péter Mezei, lecturer at University of Szeged to enlight the audience about artistic works and their legal violations via a questionnaire compiled by the professors. (The questionnaire can be filled in here.)

cafebabel.com: What is a creative work?

Péter Mezei: According to the law any work of individual-original nature can be considered as intellectual work. There are some cases, however, when this wording does not give a clear guidance. The question is complex because different problems can emerge depending on the type of the work. For example, in the case of John Cage’s performance, when he sat down to a piano and performed nothing for 4 minutes and 33 seconds, we cannot talk about creation in the traditional sense. So if I repeat it, it cannot be qualified as a copyright infringement. Another vivid example is photographing. The technology is easily accessible, anyone can take photographs nowadays. Therefore, this kind of clicking is not of original-individual nature, while photos for which the location and the lights were set, can be more easily qualified as creative works. While technology is developing and becoming more and more accessible, copyright protection pertaining to photographs has been decreasing.

Anett Pogácsás: Luckily, copyright does not depend on taste or quantity, so even a two-line child poem can be regarded as such. But words cannot be monopolized, otherwise we would run out of them sooner or later. In case of disputes it is the Copyright Expert Body that takes the decision. Individual means that you made it, and originality is not necessarily the same as new. In this case it is not the original idea that matters, but the implementation.

If you would have to put a face to the Balkan music, an average European will most likely think of Goran Bregovic. The producer, composer and the leader of Wedding And Funeral Band has been featured as one the headliners of the Sziget festival several times until now. Talking to cafebabel.com reporters before his performance he commended the festival for not only featuring the mainstream music, but other stuff, as well. 

‘When it comes to music, people tend to think that everything is on MTV. Of course, that's not the case. Different people listen to different music. The world is curious and smart. That's why people travel from all over Europe to come to Sziget and hear unordinary things. Only naive people think that TV features all of the music. For instance, I sell millions of records and I'm never on TV.’