HUNGARY: Oscar-winning film director Istvan Szabo has revealed plans to make a film inspired by his years as a spy for communist Hungary's dreaded secret police.
Szabo stunned his compatriots and film lovers around the world by admitting that he spied on fellow students after Hungary's 1956 revolution against communist rule, which was brutally crushed by Soviet troops.
He insisted, however, that no one had suffered as a result of his reports, which he said were full of "nonsense" that successfully distracted the security services from one student who had taken up arms against the Soviets during the uprising.
Facing the media for the first time since his past was disclosed, Szabo (67) was joined by former classmates Janos Rozsa and Zsolt Kezdi-Kovacs, who also went on to become film directors.
Kezdi-Kovacs admitted being recruited along with Szabo, recalling that they had been taken from a Budapest cinema to police headquarters, where they were held separately for three days until, fearing torture and expulsion from film school, they agreed to inform on other students.
"I knew what methods of coercion the police might use and I knew I would not survive them," Kezdi-Kovacs admitted.
Rozsa, who was mentioned in their reports, added: "You have to remember what it was like here in 1956, '57, '58. People were being hanged, trains were taking prisoners away to Russia."
Szabo - who won an Oscar in 1981 with Mephisto, the tale of an actor who makes a pact with the Nazis in return for freedom to continue his creative life - revealed later that the three friends would now collaborate on a film inspired by his time as reluctant communist agent.
"Recent days have been very difficult, because I couldn't speak openly about all this without the permission of my classmates," he told The Irish Times. "Now we are going to make a film together about it all. The timing depends on how lazy Kezdi-Kovacs is - he is going to write the script."
Unlike many of its neighbours, Hungary has not allowed open access to its communist archives.
A leading historian has claimed that Cardinal Laszlo Paskai, who was Hungary's Catholic primate from 1987-2002, spied on his fellow clergymen, but delivered reports that did not endanger their subjects.