Mária Horváth was born in 1952 in Pécs, Hungary. In 1971 she joined the newly founded Kecskeméti Film Studio, where she attended pantomime, music composing and animation courses. Horváth’s exceptional work was honoured on several occasions: her first independent film Az éjszaka csodái (Miracles of the Night) received a prize at the Ottawa International Film Festival in 1982, and her animated film Zöldfa utca 66 (66 Green Tree Street) was chosen as one of the sixteen best animations in Europe in 1993. In 1990 and 2002 she received the Balázs Béla Prize, a state sponsored award in Hungary for outstanding achievements in cinematography.

Most of Horváth’s work consists of fairy tale animations – both literary fairy tales and folk tales – with highly characteristic figures, ornamental motifs and special editing. Between 1979 and 2011 Mária Horváth directed/co-directed several episodes of the well-known Magyar népmesék (Hungarian Folk Tales) series. In 2013 she created the award-winning Cigánymesék (Gypsy Tales), one of the main purposes of which was to represent Roma folk heritage and cultural values, in combination with contemporary Roma art. In the creative process she worked with several Roma artists, writer and illustrator Szécsi, Magda, painter Orsós, Teréz and Oláh, József a musician.

References

https://www.kaff.hu/content/show/80

http://www.bacstudastar.hu/horvath-maria

https://romediafoundation.wordpress.com/2017/01/17/gypsy-tales-animation-cartoon-series-from-the-perspective-of-contemporary-roma-artists/

Filmography / Awards

1979–2011 Magyar népmesék, (Hungarian Folk Tales)

1982 The Miracles of the Night

1983–1987 Door series 2–9

1984 Leo and Fred

1992 66 Green Tree Street

1995 Tales of the Wide Man

2000 Stills: Drawings about a Landscape of a Life

2002 The Telling Stone

2007 Story of the Girl in the Blue Dress

2009 In the Round Four-Cornered Forest / Monster Luis, Oh, So Tired

2011 In the Round Four-Cornered Forest / Pretty Kitty’s Flower

2014 Cigánymesék: A cigányasszony meg az ördög (Gypsy Tales: The Gypsy Woman and the Devil), won Best TV Series for Teens and Best Soundtrack awards at the 2015 Cartoons on the Bay International Animation Film Festival

2015 Cigánymesék: Káló (Gypsy Tales: Káló)

2015 Cigánymesék: Doja a Cigánytündér (Gypsy Tales: Doja, the Gypsy Fairy),
awarded special prize of the Hungarian Lutheran Church at the 12th Kecskemét Animation Film Festival, awarded first prize at the 3rd International Ethnographic Film Festival in 2016