Private Project

Agnes Heller: Philosopher, Dissident, Activist

This film tells the story of eminent philosopher Agnes Heller, whose cinematic life is a model of ethical and political commitment. She experienced the Holocaust, repression under the Communist regime, and exile, but kept a tireless optimistic outlook. After the fall of the Eastern Bloc, her relentless activism took her back to Hungary to become, in her seventies, the fiercest critic of Hungary’s populist government, and she suffered political attacks until her tragic and sudden death.

  • Helio San Miguel
    Director
    Blindness
  • Helio San Miguel
    Writer
    Blindness
  • Helio San Miguel
    Producer
  • Agnes Heller
    Key Cast
  • Suzanne Yong-Sellers
    Editor
    Cover Shot, Blindness, Marvelous, Happy Face, Rachel Ray, Hammered with John and Jimmy DiResta, etc.
  • Nyika Jancsó
    Director of Photography
    Arte Concert series, Lucerne Festival, Georg Friedrich Händel: Feuerwerksmusik - Mit dem Collegium 1704, The Taming of the Shrew, Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra - Das Gründungskonzert aus Warschau, Los versos salvados, Mom and Other Loonies in the Family, Adam's Passion, Captain Alatriste, The Angel of Budapest, etc.
  • Project Type:
    Documentary
  • Runtime:
    2 hours 6 minutes 32 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    March 10, 2025
  • Production Budget:
    234,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States, Hungary, Italy, Poland, United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Helio San Miguel

Helio San Miguel was born in Madrid and lives in New York, where he completed his MFA in Film at NYU. He’s the writer and director of Blindness, a film about a love story between a shy man and a blind woman, has written Ike's Place, a political thriller about an electoral crisis, and is currently working on a script based on the story of Abelard and Héloïse. Helio has a Ph.D. in philosophy and teaches film history and film aesthetics at the Media School and The New School. Helio has also edited and contributed to several film books, published numerous articles, and lectured extensively about cinema.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

This feature-length documentary tells the story of prominent Jewish Hungarian philosopher Agnes Heller. She suffered the Holocaust, repression under the Communist regime, and exile in Melbourne and New York. After the fall of the Eastern Bloc, her relentless activism took her back to Hungary to become the fiercest critic of Orbán’s populist government, and she became a target of political attacks until her tragic and sudden death.

The film uses her life and ideas to bring a reflection on some of the most dramatic historical episodes of the 20th century that have defined the world in which we live today and serve as the engine of her reflections in ethics and philosophy of history. It also touches on current political topics such as totalitarianism, populism, repression, democracy, social progress, inequality, rule of law, and ethical behavior and resilience in the midst of unspeakable tragedy, and shows her illuminating analyses along with a relentlessly optimistic outlook of life.

Agnes Heller is one of the most lucid minds of our times, an internationally revered thinker and the most important Hungarian intellectual. She is one of the most significant philosophers since the post-war period, and a theorist of the New Left, the 1960s’ movement that redefined progressive aspirations around the world such as women's rights, gay rights, environmentalism, drug policy reform, etc. She’s also the author of over fifty books that have been translated into dozens of languages expanding her cultural, academic and political influence and significance in the world stage and in her native Hungary.