Ilona Kolonits


Ilona Kolonits was a Hungarian documentary film director and international news correspondent. She was one of the first women war correspondents and also was among the first women film directors. Kolonits' films were known for their lyrical treatment of grand historical events as well as the lives of ordinary people. Ilona Kolonoits received numerous awards and nominations throughout her career, including international film festivals in Paris, Moscow, Oberhausen, Cortina d’Ampezzo, Berlin, Leipzig, Mexico City and Budapest.
Ilona Kolonits has been awarded the title Righteous Among the Nations and the 'Pro Virtue' Award for Courage of the Republic of Hungary for saving the lives of many during the Second World War.

Biography

Ilona Kolonits was born in 1922 in Budapest to a family of notable humanitarian political activists. Her father, Ferenc Kolonits and mother Paulina Kolonits took an active part in the Hungarian anti-fascist resistance movement in the Second World War. As a young girl Ilona herself volunteered to rescue over 40 children from the Budapest Ghetto who were destined to be deported and killed in the Nazi's concentration camps. Alongside her mother, Paolina Kolonits, and Ilona's two sisters, Margit and Paola, in 2007 Ilona Kolonits was awarded the Righteous Among the Nations title by Yad Vashem in recognition of saving the lives of numerous people during the Second World War. The Kolonits family sheltered in their country home and also their fashion boutique in Budapest a great number of Jewish people and anti-fascists persecuted by the Nazis this way saving them from being killed by the fascists in Hungary or in death camps. Ilona's elder sister, Margit Kolonits rescued children of Jewish prisoners while they were being deported. Among others the Kolonits family rescued and adopted an orphan of the Holocaust, Erzsebet Garai, the later well known film theoretician and editor of a renowned Film theory periodical, Filmkultura. In 1944 Ilona's father, Ferenc Kolonits was deported to the Buchenwald concentration camp for his anti-fascist activities along with other leading members of the Hungarian Social Democratic Party. He took an active role in organising the Buchenwald Resistance movement and fought to liberate the prisoners from the camp.
Apart from rescuing people Ilona Kolonits also took part in carrying messages during the Nazi occupation between groups taking part in resistance in various parts of Budapest. During the Siege of Budapest she was cut off from her family, on the other side of the city over the Danube river and was stranded in a cellar for several weeks without food and very little water. She wrote a farewell note to her family but was fortunately saved when the Nazis were driven out of Budapest by the advancing 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian Front of the Soviet Army. Witnessing at first hand the brutal fascist persecutions, numerous atrocities from the Nazis against minorities and the street fights in Budapest during the Second World War made a lasting impression on Ilona Kolonits and formed her lifelong commitment to international peace and humanitarian affairs.
As a child Ilona Kolonits was interested in drama, acting and athletic sports. After the Second World War she studied at the Academy of Drama and Film in Budapest and subsequently went on to study film directing. She wrote her Thesis in Documentary Cinema, and in 1954 became one of the first Hungarian women Fellows of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences alongside Dr. Elizabeth Garai and Yvette Biro. In the Anti-fascist movement she befriended many young Hungarian writers, artists and poets including the poet Attila József, and later she became a member of the Fészek Art Club in Budapest.

Career

Between 1951 and 1989 Ilona Kolonits was a film director at the Mafilm Film Studios in Budapest and later at the Hungarian Documentary Film Studios. While other Hungarian women filmmakers of her generation including Márta Mészáros and Ilona Katkics produced feature films, Ilona Kolonits remained faithful to her calling as a documentary filmmaker.
Ilona Kolonits was a dedicated documentary film director and international news and war correspondent. She shot over 500 newsreels and directed over one hundred documentary, popular science and sport films, of which 17 received international and six national Hungarian film awards. Kolonits risked her life in order to provide news from remote and conflict ridden parts of the world. She filmed armed conflicts in the Middle East and Far East in the 1960s and 1970s, accepting assignments turned down by her colleagues because of the dangers involved. Kolonits' poetic and expressive documentary cinema aimed to promote world peace, justice, equality and humanitarian causes. Kolonits often portrayed minority groups in her films, and she was in particular concerned with the cause of women and children whose lives were distraught by violent conflicts. One of her most outstanding cinematic achievements is the short film Eroica, which depicts the tragedy of the Vietnam War on the lives of women and children in a series of breathtaking images edited to the sounds of Symphony No. 3 in E flat major by Ludwig van Beethoven played by the Vietnam National Symphony Orchestra. 'Eroica' is a powerful cinematic statement that advocaties peace against war by expressing simultaneously the great sorrow of loss and the overwhelming joy of rebirth in peace lived by a whole nation.
Ilona Kolonits' best known and most disputed film is As It Happened, a documentary portraying the events of the 1956 Uprising in Hungary. The film was edited from original footages which Ilona Kolonits herself shot on the streets of Budapest as none of the Hungarian film directors nor camera crews were prepared to work under the conditions of violent conflict. By risking her life while filming alone on the streets during the fights, Kolonits provided ample authentic documentary footages of the armed conflict. The political controversy surrounding this film related to the interpretation of the events through editing in years to come overshadowed the considerable on an international scale cinematic heritage of Ilona Kolonits' humanist documentary cinema.
Ilona Kolonits' cinematic style can be best characterised as lyrical and poetic. In her films she depicted the beauty and heroism in the everyday lives of people. Her kindness and genuine compassion won hearts both in her home country and worldwide allowing Kolonits to portray intimate moments of joy and grief, traditions and customs of minority and ethnic communities, women and children In 1955 she started a several decades-long series of documentary films entitled Birthday following the lives of a group of women throughout their annual school reunions, this way presenting a very personal, feminine view of a generation. Among Kolonits' cinematic subjects were Fine Art. 'Thank You For The Clay' is a homage to the art and skill of the renewed Hungarian sculptor, Margit Kovacs. Kolonis' 1988 film You Like Horses, Don't You? addresses animal rights. Kolonits gave a lyrical homage to the city where she was born and which she loved in her film Budapest. The films of Ilona Kolonits are filed at the Hungarian National Digital Film Archives and Film Institute and are protected by the Hungarian Society for the Protection of Audio-Visual Authors' and Producers' Rights.

Personal life

Ilona Kolonits was considered by those few who knew her well to be an exceptionally kind, courageous, noble yet lighthearted person. She never gave interviews enjoying a private and modest life with her parents in a green suburb of Budapest. Kolonits spent her free time between her parents, siblings and extended family with whom she shared her love of reading and nature walks. She collected in her home a considerable library and art collection, while often gaving large amounts from her income anonymously to charity in support of children orphaned due to violent conflicts and war.
Although a strikingly beautiful and stylish woman, Ilona Kolonits never married, instead she dedicated her life to her calling as a film director and international news correspondent. The only known romantic interest Ilona had was a platonic fascination with the young Hungarian poet Attila József. Their age difference, József's engagement and early death made any relationship between them impossible. The young Ilona was inspired by the poet's artistic talent, patriotic feelings and pacifist activities. Attila József's speeches at the meetings of the young anti-fascists, condemning social injustice, the death penalty and supporting the cause of the oppressed minorities had a profound influence on the young girl, and Kolonits lived by these humanitarian values throughout her life. Her last wish was for Attila József's poem, At The Danube, expressing a hope for peace and for national and international reconciliation to read at her memorial service.
Ilona Kolonits died in Budapest in 2002 at the age of 80. Her ashes are resting alongside those of her parents in the historical pantheon of the Farkasréti Cemetery in Budapest.

Selected awards