“The film touched viewers emotionally in North America,” Szász told the Hungarian News Agency. He was present when The Notebook was first shown in Toronto. The film then went on to the 13th Hungarian Film Festival in Los Angeles, where the audience included Hungarian–Americans.

“I felt that the film ‘got under the skin’ of the viewers,” Szász stated.

The LA festival coincided with the screening of foreign films nominated for AAs for members of the American Film Academy. How many of members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences sees an entry can be a factor in a film’s fate, Szász hinted.

“You don’t have to be Hungarian to understand this film” he answered to the question if audiences in the US could appreciate a war film set in Central Europe in the mid-20th century.

“In Sao Paolo [Brazil] a Native American woman walked up to me and declared that this film should be shown to penniless and abandoned children of the favelas because it is about their lives. I am convinced that this film has a universal message,” Szász asserts.

Hungarian actress Piroska Molnár, who plays the role of the grandmother of the twin boy stars of the film, got thundering applause at the Washington screening.

In July 2013 The Notebook was awarded the Crystal Globe, the main honor at the Karlovy Vary festival. (MTI)

Source: Magyar Nemzet

Translated by Budapest Telegraph