Director (HU)

Barna Szász is an internationally recognized documentarian with works featured by PBS, The Guardian and Vimeo Staff Pick and he teaches narrative XR at Stanford University.

Barna’s Jewish grandma was taken to the Budapest ghetto, but she always refused to talk about the past – so for Barna, this project is a very personal one. He brings his expertise in documentary and vision for AR storytelling into the project.

Digital Ethics Consultant (UK)

Victoria is a media theorist at the University of Sussex, researching Digital Media and Genocide Memory, with a particular focus on the Holocaust.
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As the primary investigator of the Digital Holocaust Memory Project, Victoria helps this project to think through difficult questions about immersion, interactivity, and digital ethics in relation to the Jewish expeirience & Holocaust representation.

Technical Artist (USA)

Dane is a Danish-American immersive media artist who explores space, identity and perspective. He teaches XR workshops and produces intermedia installations around the world.

Dane is a storytelling tech nerd, who’s always years ahead of the industry, so he naturally brings the newest technological solutions into the project.

Historian (HU)

Borbála is a historian focusing on the research of the Holocaust in Hungary. She has multiple related degrees from ELTE & CEU, a PhD in Comparative History with a focus on the Holocaust from SZTE, and she’s a researcher of Yad Vashem.

As an expert, Borbála brings historical accuracy and she conducts original research about the Jewish Quarter specifically for the project.

Education & Impact Measurement Lead (HU)

Gábor is a social psychologist who worked as an intervention developer at Stanford and is currently doing research at the University of Artois.

Gábor brings his expertise in psychological measurement and intervention design into this project, to measure how the XR experience affects empathy and learning.

Producer (HU)

Noémi, a graduate of the Beijing Film Academy and SZFE, is an internationally recognized film director & producer with multiple Sundance and HBO-backed projects. Her most recent production, The Agent of Happiness premiered at Sundance 2024.

Together with Máté, they are also the first co-producers to produce a large-scale narrative VR piece (the internationally acclaimed Missing 10 Hours) in Hungary. Noémi brings her vast creative production expertise into the project.

Producer (HU)

Máté, a graduate of NYU Tisch School and SZFE, is an internationally recognized film director & producer with multiple Sundance and HBO-backed projects. His most recent production, The Agent of Happiness premiered at Sundance 2024.

Together with Noémi, they are also the first producers to produce a large-scale narrative VR piece (the internationally acclaimed Missing 10 Hours) in Hungary. He brings his vast creative production expertise into the project.

Screenwriter (HU)

Dániel Daoud is a Hungarian-Syrian screenwriter. He graduated from the University of Theatre and Film Arts, he got a master degree in Film Script Editing, in Budapest in 2019. He wrote Collapsed Lung, which won the first prize at Euroshorts in Gdansk. He has also worked in two short documentaries (Champion; Downstream) as a story editor. In 2022 he won the grand prize of the ScripTeast international screenwriting workshop, which was given out in Cannes. He also worked in the film Six Weeks as a co-writer. 

Daniel is working as a screenwriter on the project.

Software Developer (HU)

András is a computer scientist and creative technologist, managing director of Code and Soda Ltd. and co-founder of Random Error Studio, both based in Budapest. He co-curates Vektor, a Hungarian XR event with the Verzio Human Rights Film Festival. 

With a strong background in tech and design, András leads the project’s technical and visual development, bringing years of experience to the table.

Software Developer (HU)

Péter is a software developer at Code and Soda Ltd. He has experience in various fields, such as eCommerce or banking, but he is most enthusiastic about the XR and the possibilities behind technological achievements and human creativity.

He works on the project's technical development and augments the real world with a digitally reconstructed environment and characters. He also processes character recordings and presents them visually with other static assets.

Visual Developer (HU)

Botond István Tobai is a media artist and filmmaker, as well as a doctoral scholar in multimedia art at Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design in Budapest, where he is also a member of the Alumni of university’s prestigious Animation programme. He feels most comfortable working at the border between fine art and moving images.

Botond is working on the visual development of the project, combining the directorial intent and the technical conditions into a coherent visual world. He will then be involved in the production as a 3D specialist, mainly in the 3D characterisation of the actors on camera.

Graphic Designer (HU)

Péter is a sculptor and graphic designer. He spent years researching the life and work of the Hungarian-Italian sculptor, Amerigo Tot. This interest culminated into a biographical novel he wrote of Tot, released in 2019.

For Péter it is a privilege to be the one who recreates the work of all those (more than 200) sign painters who worked in Budapest at the turn of the century in the context the If These Streets Could Talk project, based on photoarchives and documents. It is also an exciting and responsible challenge to present a slice of our past as accurately as possible for future generations.

Historian (HU)

Laura Csonka is a historian, an archival educator and a consultant for museum pedagogy. She is working in the Hungarian National Archives as the head of the archival education and publishes regularly in the subject, besides leading courses and giving university seminars. As a historian her research focuses primarily on the era of the Hungarian Arrow Cross party and on the Hungarian Socialist Republic. She is regularly giving tours in Budapest related to the story of the Arrow Cross party. 

Laura is taking part in the project as a historian, mainly researching articles and archival documents relating to the period between the two world wars.

Historian (HU)

Erika Szívós is a historian, the professor and head of the Department of Economic and Social History at the Eötvös Lóránd University in Budapest, and an expert in the social, cultural and urban history of the 19th-20th century. As an author or editor, she has published numerous studies and volumes in Hungarian, English and German. She recently published a comprehensive book on the history of the area of Erzsébetváros (the 7th district of Budapest) that is known as the Jewish District of the city.

Erika is involved in the If These Streets Could Talk project, supporting the development as a historian. By researching interview databases and personal resources, she contributes to the creation of the characters and locations of the story. As she has a long-standing interest in the history and society of Inner-Erzsébetváros and has worked on other projects related to the "old Jewish quarter of Pest", she is happy to join the team.

Communication Assistant (HU)

Gergely has been working as a tour guide for many years, and as part of his profession he is walking the streets of Budapest, so those of the Jewish district, too on a daily basis. His aim is always to convey, as vividly and accurately as possible, the stories that - however distant they are becoming - made the city and those who live in it.

Gergely has been thinking for a long time how it would be possible to expand the scope of guiding people in a city by taking advantage of the new technologies, yet not alienating people from the city itself. Therefore he is very excited to take part in the If These Streets Could Talk project, and to be responsible for its communication and social media presence.