Professional Motion Picture Production and Distribution NEWS

(Hollywood, CA) Klaudia Kovacs' Torn from the Flag, submitted for Oscar(R) consideration, exemplifies the human needs for hope and freedom, and the need to throw off the reins of oppression, thus delivering a timely message with strong parallels to today's global sense of uncertainty. The United States is currently poised politically and socially for big changes, and the current U.S. and world crises cast an atmosphere of uncertainty, confusion and fear. What Hungary faced in its 1956 Revolution and Freedom Fight was a microcosm of what the world faces now.

The Hungarians set aside their social, economic, ethnic, and religious differences during the Revolution. The goal of their Freedom Fight, although it came eventually, was delayed in coming because the world didn't act to support it; rather, by its inaction, it sold off human dignity and freedom. The Hungarians' story shows that only by tabling major ideological, religious, political, cultural and even economic differences, and by the world coming together, can we aspire to effect major change toward a world that works for all.

Though Torn from the Flag is a documentary, Ms. Kovacs' conceptual vision was for it to have the storytelling style and feel of a narrative, i.e., fictional, film. The current young adult generation responds very well to the tight pacing and to what Ms. Kovacs calls the "contemporary, emotional history-telling" style; for many, it comes across as a thriller.

Multi-award-winner Ms. Kovacs, whose journey to complete this film encompassed 9 years, leaned heavily on both the filmmaking expertise and the real-life experience of the 1956 Hungarian Freedom Fight brought to the project by Hollywood heavyweights Vilmos Zsigmond and Laszlo Kovacs (no relation), as well as on the stories of other heroes of the uprising. Ms. Kovacs also researched never-before-seen, newly declassified archives and U.N. files to make her film.

Hollywood legend Laszlo Kovacs was the Director of Photography. Mr. Kovacs and Academy Award(R)-winning fellow cinematographer Zsigmond shot footage during the 1956 Hungarian uprising with a camera hidden in a shopping bag, then escaped from Hungary shortly thereafter. Some of the archive footage used in Torn from the Flag is this very footage, and it is interwoven among interviews lit and shot by Mr. Kovacs and Zsigmond protege Zoltan Honti. Mr. Kovacs returned to Hungary armed with the latest digital technology -- this was his first foray into shooting in HD -- to film the story, the locations, and the people of his native land. This was Mr. Kovacs' last film. Zsigmond and Mr. Kovacs also acted as two of the Executive Producers on the project.

Torn from the Flag has been selected to the Starz Denver Film Festival and will screen there on November and 18 and 19. Local screenings will be held in Vancouver, BC and Victoria, BC on November 20 and 21, respectively, and in Seattle on the 23rd. The film will screen in the Plus CAMERIMAGE Festival in Lodz, Poland on December 3 and in the Santa Fe Film Festival on December 5.