Éva Gárdos is an award-winning film director and editor born in Hungary who began her professional career as a teacher in New York City’s toughest schools. Her first job in movies was working for Francis Ford Coppola as a production assistant on Apocalypse Now (1979) in the Philippines. She went on to establish a career as a film editor (Valley Girl, Mask, Bastard Out of Carolina), working with distinguished directors such as Barbet Schroeder, Peter Bogdanovich, and Anjelica Huston.
Éva’s screenwriting and feature film directorial debut was An American Rhapsody (2001), starring a young Scarlett Johansson. The film was based on the true life events of Éva’s family escaping from Hungary in the 1950s and being forced to leave their infant child (Éva) behind. Éva spent six years in Hungary with foster parents before rejoining her biological parents in America.
After discovering the best-selling Hungarian novel, Budapest Noir, she returned to Hungary to develop and direct the film version.
“The minute I finished the novel, which I read in English, I was determined to make this film. After making An American Rhapsody, a very personal story, I was excited by the idea of making a genre film with political undertones. I loved the idea of Budapest being a character of the film. Right from the start it was an adventure since Vilmos Kondor, the author of the book, is a pseudonym and so we first had to find this mystery man to secure the rights.”