come to the States,” Senyei says. He strongly believes that education is “the great equalizer” in America because it became the path he followed to success.
Senyei, who became an executive producer for Torn From the Flag, says the film also serves as a reminder “at a time when immigration is viewed askance” that the United States is really all about immigrants and how they got here. The list of Hungarian-born Americans who rose to prominence, he notes, includes physicist Edward Teller, father of the H-bomb, former Intel CEO Andrew Grove, and USC professor George Olah, who was awarded the 1994 Nobel Prize in chemistry.
Kovacs, who left Hungary for the United States in the 1990s, says that while it took her nine years to make Torn From the Flag she never had “self-limiting beliefs”—a sentiment often expressed by immigrants who resettle in America.
Making the documentary, Kovacs says, “felt like I was nine-months pregnant for nine years. It was extremely hard… But it never occurred to me that I couldn’t make this film.”
Kovacs, who lost both her parents as a child, came to the United States at age 18 with $200 and without knowing anyone or speaking any English.
In working on the project, she recruited renowned Hungarian-born cinematographers Vilmos Zsigmond and the late Laszlo Kovacs to help. Laszlo Kovacs (who was not related to Klaudia) served as the director of photography, and both men are listed with Senyei as executive producers.
For Kovacs, making a documentary about the Hungarian uprising was both a personal and historical demonstration of the power of an individual.
“We all have the power to change things,” she says. Hungary’s 13-day uprising revealed the totalitarian nature of Russian Communism and raised significant issues for the West.
“Ultimately, the way it translates for me as an artist is having the power to change things, to make a difference,” she says.
For Senyei, the film is about all of that. But it is personal too.
“I really wanted a world-class documentary to show my kids what their roots are,” he said.
