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FICM Honors Filmmaker and Individual Béla Tarr with a Screening of THE TURIN HORSE

Gustavo R. Gallardo

The Turin Horse (2011), the last film by Béla Tarr, who died on January 6, 2026, was screened as a tribute to the Hungarian film director as part of the activities of the 24th edition of the Morelia International Film Festival (FICM).

In 2009, Béla Tarr presented this film as part of the festival’s ninth edition, shortly after it won the Silver Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival. Eight years later, he returned to Morelia as president of the jury at the 15th edition of the festival, in which he was awarded the UNAM Film Library Medal and presented with an honorary armchair with his name before the screening of The Turin Horse.

That day, Tarr seemed grateful and happy to be in the city, even showing how comfortable he felt at the festival when he went to a nearby hair salon. The image of him getting a haircut made headlines around the world.

“Béla’s presence at the festival left something magical. I was incredibly blessed to have met him, to have his friendship, to witness firsthand that he was a profoundly charitable, kind, loving, and generous man… he dedicated the last years of his life to teaching, and that has immense value,” said Daniela Michel, founder and general director of FICM, tearfully, adding: “He is the most magnificent artist one could imagine. His work is absolutely monumental: cinema as cinema should be.”

Béla Tarr's filmography includes, in addition to the aforementioned, The Judgment (1987), Sátántangó (1994), Werckmeister Harmonies (2000) and The Man from London (2007). “He was a very intense teacher and friend, I learned a lot from him, and even more as a person,” said Mexican filmmaker Carlos Reygadas, who was present along with three of Tarr’s students, the film’s producer Marie-Pierre Macia, journalist and critic Jonathan Romney, and producer Amila Ramovic.

“In The Turin Horse, there are no allegories, no symbols, no metaphysical questions. When I saw Béla again, he told me he was shooting what would be his final film. ‘When you see it,’ he said, ‘you will understand why,’” recounted Romney, who went on to describe Tarr as an “observer of the abyss.”

“He had the courage to contemplate and gaze deeply into the abyss, much like Beckett or Dostoevsky. That requires tenderness, hope, and a love for humanity,” he added.

In recent years, Béla Tarr sought to bring visibility to the homeless population in Vienna through Missing People (2019)—an artistic project that combined expanded cinema with a live performance, created specifically for an arts festival in Austria.