Szechenyi Hidmester

Budapest 2013
Director: Diana Pacheco, Tobias Pehböck

Fazekas János is the bridge keeper of the Szechenyi Bridge, the oldest bridge of Budapest. His family is taking care of this bridge already in the third generation. Growing up always related and strongly connected to this bridge, János decided to give up his career as solo guitarist and animation drawer, and take over his fathers job as a bridge keeper.

For the task “One man one day” of the documentary directing class with Tamas Almasi and Attila Kèkesi, Diana Pacheco, my colleague from Ecuador and me decided to follow Fasekas János one day in his Job as a bridge keeper, taking care of the myth-enshrouded beautiful chain bridge.

We tried to describe one cycle in checking the bridge, following János to the places at the bridge only a view people know of. Furthermore we re-created as a task all the sounds that happened in the places. We recorded sounds (footsteps, cars, bikes, drops) and collected sounds from sound libaries to create the mood we experienced while shooting.