#46 A Legal Alien in New York with Laszlo Jakab Orsos

MINDSETSHIFT with Mickey Feher

What does it mean to grow up as a minority and how do you break out of the life script? Where is racism worse, in Hungary or in the United States? What is the difference if you are an immigrant by choice and what is it like when you have no other choice? What is it like to work with Salman Rushdie? My guest is László Jakab Orsós, a Hungarian curator, journalist and film-maker who began his career, first as a newspaper columnist, before gaining a professorship at the Budapest Academy of Film. In 1997, he taught in the Graduate Film Program at New York University, and, in 1999, became a member of the jury of Sundance Institute’s screenwriting laboratory. In 2004, he co-wrote the script for an animated feature film, The District. After moving to New York in 2005, he became the director of the Hungarian Cultural Center, where he launched Extremely Hungary, a series of 120 events about Hungarian culture. In 2010, he was appointed director of the PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature. He`s currently the Vice President of Arts and Culture at the Brooklyn Public Library system.