Bence Fligauf

Source: KVIFF

Bence Fligauf

Jimmy Jaguar is the latest film from Hungarian director Bence Fliegauf, who describes it as a “consensual mindfuck”. 

Fliegauf has credits including Forest, I See You Everywhere which won Lilla Kizlinger a Berlinale Silver Bear for best supporting performance in 2021, Just The Wind, which won the Berlinale grand jury prize in 2012, and Milky Way, winner of the Golden Leopard at Locarno in 2017. 

Jimmy Jaguar, which has echoes of classic horror mockumentaries such as The Blair Witch Project, will make its world premiere in the Crystal Global competition at Karlovy Vary next week. 

The director was inspired to make the film while working on a documentary. After a series of strange incidents during filming – including a psychotherapeutic self-awareness session and a trip to Latin America – he convinced his tight-knit team of cast and crew (who are affectionately referred to as ‘Fliegauf’s Circus’) the story of a demon hell-bent on vengeance would be the way to go.

Jimmy Jaguar begins with two men in the midst of a delirium who tie up an elderly man and set him adrift on a boat. The elderly man is revealed to be a Serbian war criminal in hiding. As they investigate this story, a documentary crew soon discovers a group of disparate people who believe they are possessed by an entity, known as Jimmy Jaguar, who will punish anyone who believes that they are above the law.

The producers are Budapest-based Fraktal Films, with Mozinet releasing in Hungary in September.

The film was originally a documentary project, but then morphed into something else entirely. Tell us about that process.

We were shooting a documentary about a kind of psycho-drama, and something intense happened – something strange and strong manifested itself. It penetrated me deeply. I felt I had to channel it somehow, and eventually that energy turned into what became Jimmy Jaguar.

What is the ‘Fliegauf Circus’? 

The ’Fliegauf Circus’ is a loose group – dozens of people, mostly young artists. What connects them is their versatility, their ability to multitask, and most of all, their deep emotional resonance with the stories that possess me – and which I share with them.

Artists, especially young ones, love to be enchanted. They’re open to being shaken by creative energy. What we do feels a bit like a ritual, and I try to guide that ritual. That’s the Circus.

Our current show is Jimmy Jaguar – a no-budget pseudo-documentary about a revenge demon, born from the deep injustices of Hungarian society. It’s a film that can’t be intellectualised. It’s something you feel, or not.

Jimmy Jaguar was made with little to no budget. Do you prefer that freedom, or do you feel unsupported by institutions?

I actually have a project, Bonefever, that’s funded by the Hungarian Film Institute (NFI), so I wouldn’t say I’m excluded or banned from institutional support. But when it comes to no-budget films, for me it’s about impatience.

Ideas like Jimmy Jaguar haunt me – they bug me, torture me, until I have no choice but to make them. The model is simple: there are always young creatives who, at some point in their lives, would rather work on a strange, no-budget art project than sit at home doom-scrolling. And they’re right to choose that.

Did you take inspiration from other genre works?

There are cultural inspirations behind the film, but they’re hard to pinpoint. A woman reminded me recently of how, 30 years ago, I threw her copy of [Mikhail Bulgakov’s] The Master And Margarita into a campfire at a music festival. I didn’t remember it, but I thought a lot about it since she told me. In hindsight, that book’s playful but deeply diabolical energy – where nothing is serious, until suddenly everything is – feels very connected to Jimmy Jaguar. There’s that same chaotic magic, that same oscillation between absurdity and existential dread.

It took a long time to shoot the film. How did it change over time?

Jimmy Jaguar was conceived as a pilot for a mini-series. We built storylines, introduced characters, created an atmosphere. But we also tried to shape it in a way that it could stand alone as a feature.

When we finalised it, I was confident about the pilot aspect but unsure about how it would work as a standalone. As a test, I sent it to Mozinet, the strongest Hungarian distributor. To my surprise, they loved it – they didn’t even think in terms of “pilot,” they just took the film as it was.

Then it got into Karlovy Vary. That’s when I started to believe it could stand on its own. Still, I’m deeply convinced the core concept is perfect for a streamer series. I’d love to try myself as a showrunner, working in a writers’ room, mentoring young directors. The beast is ready to hunt – the story outlines are written.

How are you hoping audiences in Karlovy Vary will react?

Whoever shows up, I’m already grateful for their openness. This film is, as one of the characters says, a mindfuck. And maybe some minds need to be fucked. Strictly consensually, of course.

What do you think you’ll be working on next?

We’ve received some development money to expand Jimmy Jaguar into a series, and I’ll be focusing on that. But before that, I want to make a proper feature film, with a budget, a crew, everything. It’s been nearly a decade since I’ve done that, and I miss it. We’re currently prepping the aforementioned project, Bonefever. It’s a bio-horror. A different beast entirely.

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