George Kaczender

George Kaczender is an award winning film director, screenwriter and author. His first feature film was nominated for the Palm D’Or in Cannes, his second for the Golden Bear in Berlin, two of the most prestigious film festivals. He received numerous nominations and awards while working at the National Film Board of Canada. During his career George has directed such luminaries as Robert Mitchum, Richard Harris, Jeanne Moreau, Brad Pitt, and George Clooney in films shot In Montreal, France and Hollywood. Kaczender was born in Budapest, Hungary and spent over twenty years in Montreal before going to Hollywood. He also had a stint as an adjunct professor at USC teaching film directing. Notebooks of an Incurable Romantic is Kaczender’s second semi-autobiographical novel covering his turbulent life in Hungary from 1933 to 1956, the year of the famous uprising. This coming-of-age story is set in Budapest during the Nazi terror, where Gabi Fodor is forced into hiding to survive the persecution and systematic murder of the Jewish population. After the Soviet Army liberated Hungary, a Communist, totalitarian regime usurped a short-lived democracy and instantly suppressed creative and individual freedoms in the country. Kaczender’s story is set against this tragic political reality. The dramatic episodes cover Gabi's early longings and relentless search for the perfect woman to love. His adventures with various girls and young women are touching, amusing and often a heartbreaking. The Hungarian section of the story is interwoven with Gabi's relationship with a beautiful film-student in contemporary Los Angeles. The author vividly and brutally depicts the American film industry and satirizes, at the same time, its creative and corporate pretentions and the struggle for success in a youth-oriented milieu.