You do a lot of things, singing for children and adults, painting, writing tales and lyrics, creating performance-like concerts, crocheting puppets and costumes and more. How do they fit together, what connects them?

One thing inspires the other. When I'm painting, for example, I'm very relaxed and I come up with lots of spontaneous stories or text ideas. If I have a bunch of songs, they usually become an album and the record has always been accompanied by a storybook, which "has to" be illustrated... and then I paint again and relax again and it starts all over again. Meanwhile I crochet the painted characters, or invent interactive role-playing games that can be used at concerts for which it's good to have a few costumes or accessories, which I also mostly make myself, or I decorate a cylinder or other hat for example.

Actually, I do a bit more of everything a child does (or at least I did as a child) when they are playing happily. In other words, they wind an imaginary world around themselves.

For the very first time, I saw you in an András Jeles movie many years ago. That time I didn’t imagine myself jumping with my kids at your concert. How did you get from adults to children?

It’s funny, because when I was 10 I was in a Jeles movie (“The Annunciation”), where everyone was a child. It was an interesting adaptation of “The Tragedy of Men”. This is one of my basic experiences, that it is good to create together with children. Later, I made a film about my 4-year-old sister, who read Egon Schiele’s album like a story book: my sister Zsófi created a story for the paintings. This short film also brought me closer to the enchanted world of children, which has been my favourite field and milieu ever since.

You create a really unique musical and visual world, not far from animation, in my opinion. Am I right? Have you ever tried to animate your drawings or puppets? Do you have such a plan?

We have an award-winning “adult” short animation called ‘Pain and Sense of Humour’, but some of our video clips contain short animated parts, for example in ‘Pajamator’ or in ‘Christmas Tower’. Students from MOME made animations for us as well (‘The Sun and the Lake’).

I would love to make or have made short films, or even “long” films, for all our songs, if I could. But it needs a lot of money and capacity. It would be great to harness the potential of crochet puppets and use them not only in concerts, but also in a more permanent form.

Do you have favourite animated films? What did you watch when you were growing up and what do you like to watch now?

I watched a lot of animation as a kid. Then when I grew up, ‘Bubble Bath’ by György Kovásznai was the one that hit me hard. If someone said something wrong about this film, I punched him in the face, or at least I told him that he was wrong.

A few years ago I was a huge fan of ‘The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack’. I loved its humour and I enjoyed its visual world.

What do you think are the most important aspects of animations for children?

‘Flapjack’ is not the right example for this… I would show all aggressions a stop sign. Little ones are sucked in by everything and it's very bad for their psyche to be exposed to any scary, extreme content or expression. I may be a mimosa, but I still remember how shocking the Wicked Witch was in the ‘Wizard of Oz’. I much preferred the Czech serenity with animations like ‘Rumcajs’ and other forest elf stories.

The outside world is clearly devalued and stakes are always raised in mainstream children films with codes which are dangerous. Codes like encouraging consumerism, aggression, excessive exhibitionism, or extreme looks, etc.

What criteria will you use to judge, what will you look for in the films?

Creativity, peacefullness, humanity, natural tones and humour are important to me. I really love to be surprised, amazed and enchanted. I look forward to the films with excitement!

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