Creating a Consistent Visual Style in Documentaries: Camera, Lighting, and Archive Materials PANEL
Participants: Balázs Domokos (DoP, Don’t Worry, Sári!), Márton Vízkelety (DoP/Director, My Chemical Information System), Csaba Hernáth (Director–DoP–Editor, Come on Tete!)
Moderator: Zsófia Paczolay (director)
How can filmmakers create a coherent yet artistically powerful visual language in documentary filmmaking — a genre often shaped by unpredictability? Cinematographers discuss how deliberate visual, lighting, and archival decisions help achieve authenticity while meeting the artistic standards of cinema and the increasingly high expectations of the international documentary community.
Zsófi Paczolay is a freelance artist, filmmaker based in Budapest and Amsterdam. Her background is in architecture, social work, performance & basketball.
Balázs Domokos is a cinematographer based in Vienna and Budapest, member of both the Hungarian Cinematographer Association (HCA) and the Hungarian Documentary Association (HDA/MADOKE).
With a background in architecture and a Master's degree in Cinematography from the University of Theatre and Film Arts Budapest (SZFE), under the guidance of renowned professor Tibor Máthé HCA, Balázs has established himself as a skilled Director of Photography across fiction, documentary, and commercial projects.
He gained international recognition with his debut feature fiction "One Day" (Egy nap), premiered at the Cannes International Film Festival in 2018 and was honored with the FIPRESCI Critics Prize.
Balázs has received two nominations at the Camerimage Festival for his work as DOP, in both the debut feature and short film categories.
He is currently working on his third feature film 'Blazing' set to premiere in 2026.
Recent achievements include the selection of his feature-length documentary 'I Won't Die' for competition at the 39th Warsaw International Film Festival in October 2023, along with upcoming premieres for the Hungarian film 'Don't worry Sári' and the Danish-Hungarian co-production '2158 Stories’ the latter of which debuted in the CPH:DOX competition in 2024 in Copenhagen.
Márton Vízkelety is an award-winning documentary filmmaker with a degree in Cinematography from the University of Theater and Film Budapest. Among others, he photographed the documentaries Keep Quiet (TriBeCa, CPH:Dox, Astra FF etc.), Train to Adulthood (DOK Leipzig, ZagrebDox) and Ultra (Sarajevo FF, San Sebastian FF). His debut as a director, together with Julianna Ugrin, Holy Dilemma, has won the Hungarian Film Critics Prize in 2022 for the best documentary, and won the main prize at the Verzió Film Festival, Budapest. My Chemical Information System is his second feature documentary.
Csaba Hernáth, a cinematographer and editor, is co-owner of the Speak Easy Project. He was a key member of the crew on the film Ultra (cinematographer, assistant editor), and worked as editor on the film Ghetto Balboa. His directorial debut is Veteran Film.
