Hurry Up And Wait

Hurry Up And Wait – In June 2021, Hungary’s ruling party, Fidesz, led by Viktor Orbán, passed a law banning the portrayal of homosexuality to minors. This is an attempt to remove homosexuality from Hungarian public life. At the same time, the German miniseries Eldorado KaDeWe – Jetzt ist unsere Zeit was filmed in Budapest. It depicts, among other things, the homosexual life of the Berlin subculture in the 1920s.

While the two lead actresses, Lia von Blarer and Valerie Stoll, were simultaneously living in a light film bubble and a backward socio-political moment, they decided to oppose the political situation with an artistic and activist voice.

In their book Hurry Up And Wait, the two actresses juxtapose queer fiction and queer reality through photographs and text. Their silver photographs taken during the making of the series give us a glimpse into the exuberant and hectic world of filmmaking, while members of the Hungarian queer community give us a glimpse into their daily lives through poems, short stories, and political discourse. They tell us about their attempts to regain the freedoms and empowerment taken away from them by the government.