Director Kalman Szegvary, Talking Wine With The Stars, TIFF, The Wine Ladies TV

Kalman began shooting short stories with his sisters and little brother when he was eleven years old at which point he began to edit and cut the stories together. He began his professional career as an assistant director at Mafilm Studios in Budapest, Hungary, where he was working on a West-German Television Series. Upon his return he produced and/or directed a few television commercials and production managed several music videos including, “Sooner or Later”, a music video for ‘The Spoons’, for Anthem Records.

Kalman felt the strong desire to create his first feature, so with very limited funds he produced and directed “Cannibal Rollerbabes”. Once completion of the edit distributors claimed that it do not contain enough nudity and so he found it tough to get the distribution contract. The film has since become a hit in cult film circles, as shock jock Howard Stern discussed it one morning on air and then had the star Lisa Heughan, on his TV show.

Kalman’s lastest film is a low-budget horror, “Abattoir” written by American James McClung.

A throwback horror movie shot on gritty 16mm film in an age where digital glossiness dominates the genre film industry, Abattoir combines the raw brutality of cult exploitation films from the seventies and eighties (such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Last House on the Left, and The Evil Dead) with a healthy dose of borderline self deprecating, tongue and cheek humor and a sharp sense of irony targeted directly at the very films that inspired it. With enough carnage and cruelty to match the utter ruthlessness of its notorious predecessors and enough winks in the audience’s direction to ensure that its gleeful blood play is not meant to be taken as anything other than a fun ride, the film is sure to excite the taste buds of any movie fan with a soft spot for cult films, retro cinema, and, of course, the “red stuff.”

Abattoir is currently in post production and in negotiations with a distributor.

The Wine Ladies are entering the exciting world of web TV.

Each year, the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) draws thousands of international filmmakers, stars and media to Toronto and for this years festival. (Sept. 10-19)

Georgia and Susanne (The Wine Ladies) set up their temporary TV studio at The Windsor Arms, 18 St. Thomas

Street in Yorkville – ground zero for the film festival – and have conducted brief interviews with the stars, filmmakers, writers, international VIPs and media representatives discussing favourite wines, what wines go with which movies at this years’ festival, favourite movies about wine (e.g.: Bottle Shock, Sideways, A Walk in the Clouds, Under the Tuscan Sun) – the ultimate in wine TV! Celebrity guests are invited to enjoy a glass of wine with The Wine Ladies.

View highlight with Kalman Szegvary here.