Slovak screenwriter, composer, singer, one of the founders of Slovak Big Beat music.
Dežo Ursiny, renowned Slovak musician, and also composer, writer and filmmaker focused his documentary works on social and ethnographic issues; other deal with deeply humanistic and existential themes, which in many ways reflect Ursiny´s own personal life. He presented extreme situations that he confronted with his own experience. The resulting documentaries reveal the deep human dimension of the filmmaker and bring an exceptional ethical message.
After graduating from the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava, Dežo Ursiny worked as a film dramaturge at the Short Film Studio. In an interview, he said about the dramaturgy of movie production, a job he did beside composing music, recording albums, and performing at concerts: “This work satisfies my need to be around people, composing songs and writing lyrics fulfils my need of solitude. In adequate doses, these two things maintain my inner balance.“ During his years at the Koliba film studios in Bratislava, he contributed to the making of hundreds of short films and he also directed many of them. There were two significant periods in his filmmaking work: In the 1980s he focused on social and ethnographic issues, but even more important were the documentaries Ursiny made in the 1990s. These in many ways reflect events in Ursiny´s own life – he dealt with extreme situations in human life that he confronted with his own experience of a cancer patient. All of his films reveal a deep human dimension and bring an exceptional ethical message. In 2008, Slovak film director Peter Krištúfek made a film about the life and work of Dežo Ursiny entitled Snapshots (Momentky).
Filmography - selected:
1980: Sanitrárovci / Sanitrar Brothers krátky / (short)
1982: Gajdoš Antalík / Bagpiper Antalík (krátky / short)
1991: O rakovine a nádeji / About Cancer and Hope
1993: Dům Matky Terezy / The House of Mother Theresa (krátky / short)
1994: Obrázky z výletu za plot bláznince / Pictures form a Trip Beyond the Madhouse Fence (krátky / short)
1997: Času je málo a voda stúpa / Too Little Time and the Water Level is Rising
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