New multimedia longread The Return of Barbed Wire

9 November 2016

In the summer of 2015 Hungary built a new and shiny fence along the border with Serbia and Croatia to keep refugees out. In 1989 the same country was the first to break open the Iron Curtain, the fence to keep people in. How could that be? We went to see the new fence and the old border for ourselves and made the multimedia longread The Return of Barbed Wire, a tale in video and text of two men at the border, who suddenly find themselves in the centre of historical attention. Read and watch here.

Successful opening of I’m So Angry Pop-up Museum

7 November 2016

The opening weekend of the I’m So Angry (I Made a Sign) Pop-up Museum was huge success. Sixty years after the Hungarian Revolution we opened up our new exhibition about protest in the streets of Budapest in cooperation with the fantastic people (Bence Molnar!) of ruin bar and cultural centre Szimpla and our lovely stagiair / top ice hockey player Boldizsár. There were stories, there were bands, there were discussions where they belong (on the streets!), there were workshops banner painting, hundreds of visitors and loads of people who made their own sign and showed it in the videobooth and thus to the world! And you know what? People only want the best for others and the world. Didn’t we already know? Maybe, but in somber days, we tend to forget. See here all the protest signs and read the report.

In February 2017 the I’m So Angry Museum will pop up in Estonia. We are very excited and started preparations this week.

Read My World

30 September 2016

The international literature festival Read My World forges connections between worlds that on the surface appear to be far apart. This year’s edition focuses on writers from Ukraine and Poland. The program looks very promising. We will be present there too to tell about the Iron Curtain Project. Hope you will join us on thursday or friday!

Read My World – edition Ukraine and Poland – will take place from 6 to 8 October 2016 in the Tolhuistuin in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

ActionReaction Pop-up Museum is coming up!

8 September 2016

We have some good news to announce: at the moment we are working on a pop-up museum about activism in Europe. What were we fighting for and why are we against so many things (progress?) nowadays? We will open for the first time in Budapest on October 23th exactly 60 years after the Hungarian uprising of 1956. We will then travel to Romania and Estland and finally to The Netherlands in 2017. Keep you posted and hope to see somewhere around!

The Hang Men – theaterplay by Dodo Gombar

11 March 2016

Sometimes fiction can help to reveal the truth. With ToldUntold we collect stories about the communist past that people still find difficult to talk about. By changing their stories into animation or theatre, we can turn the personal into universal stories.

The acclaimed Slowak theatre director and playwright Dodo Gombar wrote especially for our project the monologue The Hangman. It will be performer sunday 13h of March at Jeden Svet by actor Jacob Erftemeijer (from the Svandovo Theatre Company). Dodo has staged over  60 plays including Faust, Three Sisters and Between Heaven and Her. Since 2010 he has been the artistic director of the Svandovo Theatre Company in Prague.

The Hang Men is a light and funny piece, based on a story that was sent to us. It’s about a man who entered the army after finishing his studies to become a veterinarian. But in the army they saw him as a doctor, so he had to work as one. In the army he also played in a band called The Hang Men. The band members convinced their superior that “Hang Men” means “Proletarians” while in reality it reflected their sense of powerlessness.

From The Hang Men:
“In november ’89 I cried, I do not remember anything so strongly, only the fact I was crying. My daughters did not get it, but did not ask either. Although they were small at that time, they were sensitive. That was what that unfree world did with us, it taught us to be more besotted on the one hand, more sensitive on the other.”

More info about the event, click here.

“Animations make it easier to talk about difficult topics.”

4 March 2016

Three animators depict three true and personal stories from the communist past of the Czech Republic, stories told by people who suffered under communism and sometimes were compelled to cooperate with the communist regime. The Czechs shared their stories anonymously, animations bring these stories to life at the One World festival in Prague. Animators Marieke Hollander, Anne van Wieren and Ineke Goes talk about their style and the project.

´Tell us what you’ve always kept a secret.´ That´s the remarkable question Bureau Boven asked the Czechs, during the ToldUntold project. Three of these stories are depicted in the form of animations. Hollander, Van Wieren and Goes were immediately enthusiastic when they were asked to participate in the project. Each with their own reason. Van Wieren, for example, was eager to tell “a true and real story” with his animations. Goes has often visited Eastern Europe. By participating she is trying to get a better understanding of the Eastern European history. Hollander was already interested in the rich animation history of Eastern Europe. When she attended a presentation on ToldUntold she knew immediately: “This I don’t want to miss.”

Goes portrays the story of the best propagandist of the regime, who did not believe in communism. Hollander tells the story of Mrs. B, who was spied on, and to this day doesn’t dare to say the name aloud of the woman who did this. Van Wieren depicts the story of a reference writer, who with his judgment, could make or break his colleagues.

The three participants of the project insisted on remaining anonymous. “Animation is a great way to visualize stories that are hard to tell. A picture is worth more than a 1000 words,” says Hollander. Van Wieren adds: “It’s a good way to get things out in the open. Animations make it easier to talk about difficult topics. An animation takes out the sting, it removes the sharp edges of a story.” According to Goes creating an animation about a true and intense story also brings about a responsibility. “I hope I’m doing the real story just, that I don´t offend anybody. My animation is based on a true story, but it’s not the story itself.”

“I do not limit myself to a particular style. The feeling that I want to convey, is most important,” says Goes about her approach to animating. “I try to convey my message with a little humor. With humor the essence of a story comes across better, I think, even when it concerns a heavy topic” Van Wieren´s style can be best described as raw and a little bit dark, he likes to give his animations a robust appearance: “For ToldUntold I worked digital. Then I filmed my animation twice with my phone. By doing this, the movie gets the stern look that I love.” For Hollander the theme of a story determines the design and the technology she uses: “As long as the beauty of movement is reflected in my animation, the style doesn’t matter so much.”

On Sunday, the 13^th of March at 18:00, the animations will be presented at the One World festival in Prague, the largest human rights film festival in the world. In addition to the animations three stories are told: a monologue and two audio documentaries.
The location is the public center in the Gallery Lucerna, Vodičkova 36 Prague.
Admission is free.