George Paul Csicsery (born March 17, 1948) is a Hungarian-American writer and independent filmmaker who has directed 35 films including performance films, dramatic shorts and documentaries. He is best known for his documentaries about mathematicians and mathematical communities.

Life and career

George Csicsery was born in Regensburg, Germany to Hungarian parents who had fled their native country after WWII (his father was a monarchist army officer).Zala Films
Official site for films by George Csicsery In 1951, the family emigrated to

Cleveland, Ohio Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U ...

. After a series of menial jobs his father became a successful stained glass and enamel artist and his mother became head of the slide library at the Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA), and assistant to renowned Asian art historian, Sherman Lee. George obtained a BA in

Comparative Religion Comparative religion is the branch of the study of religions with the systematic comparison of the doctrines and practices, themes and impacts (including migration) of the world's religions. In general the comparative study of religion yield ...

from

UC Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant univ ...

(1969), and an MFA in Film Production from San Francisco State University (1972). He taught

film editing Film editing is both a creative and a technical part of the post-production process of filmmaking. The term is derived from the traditional process of working with film which increasingly involves the use of digital technology. The film edit ...

at Film Arts Foundation in San Francisco from 1982 to 1997, and general cinema courses to undergraduates at San Francisco State University in 1996 and at

UC Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a public land-grant research university near Davis, California. Named a Public Ivy, it is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The institu ...

in 1998.
Math Films, Yes - But So Much More
' by Doniphan Blair, Cinesource Magazine, Oct 31, 2020 He once said, "I am interested in people who can find happiness in creating their own world. That is true of mathematicians and romance writers. These people are creating universes different from where they live." In 2009 he received the

Joint Policy Board for Mathematics The Joint Policy Board for Mathematics (JPBM) consists of the American Mathematical Society, the American Statistical Association, the Mathematical Association of America, and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics. The Board has near ...

(JPBM) Communications Award for his work showing the process of mathematical thinking through the medium of film. Csicsery has written about the difficulties of being a displaced person after WWII, and about his two brothers−one of whom fought in the Hungarian Revolution.George Csicsery, Displaced Person
Vimeo interview in 2015

Reception

Writing in Nature Magazine Davide Castelvecchi said, "Csicsery has carved a niche as a maker of compelling films about mathematicians". Beginning in March 2022, as part of the celebration of Women's History Month, ''Secrets of the Surface: The Mathematical Vision of Maryam Mirzakhani'' will be shown on more than 300 PBS stations.

Filmography

* ''Songs Along A Stony Road'' (co-directed with Chris Teerink), about Zoltán Kallós and folk musicians of

Transylvania Transylvania ( ro, Ardeal or ; hu, Erdély; german: Siebenbürgen) is a historical and cultural region in Central Europe, encompassing central Romania. To the east and south its natural border is the Carpathian Mountains, and to the west the ...

(2011) * ''The Thursday Club'', about a gathering of retired

Oakland Police Department The Oakland Police Department (OPD) is a law enforcement agency responsible for policing the city of Oakland, California, United States. As of May 2021, the department employed 709 sworn officers and 371 civilian employees. The department is div ...

officers (2005) * ''Hungry for Monsters'', about false memory, focusing on Nicole Althaus's disproved allegations of sexual abuse against her father (2003) * ''Where the Heart Roams'', about The Love Train, a rail voyage from Los Angeles to the Romantic Book Lovers Conference in New York City (1987) * ''Hookers'', about sex worker activist Margo St. James (1975)

Films about mathematicians and mathematics

Much of Csicsery's work since the early 1990s has been about eminent mathematicians or the mathematics community in general. These include: * ''Secrets of the Surface: The Mathematical Vision of

Maryam Mirzakhani Maryam Mirzakhani ( fa, مریم میرزاخانی, ; 12 May 1977 – 14 July 2017) was an Iranian mathematician and a professor of mathematics at Stanford University. Her research topics included Teichmüller theory, hyperbolic geometry, ...

'' (2020) * ''Navajo Math Circles'' (2016) * ''Counting from Infinity: Yitang Zhang and the Twin Prime Conjecture'' (2015) * ''Taking the Long View: The Life of

Shiing-shen Chern Shiing-Shen Chern (; , ; October 28, 1911 – December 3, 2004) was a Chinese-American mathematician and poet. He made fundamental contributions to differential geometry and topology. He has been called the "father of modern differential geome ...

'' (2010) * ''I Want To Be A Mathematician: A Conversation with

Paul Halmos Paul Richard Halmos ( hu, Halmos Pál; March 3, 1916 – October 2, 2006) was a Hungarian-born American mathematician and statistician who made fundamental advances in the areas of mathematical logic, probability theory, statistics, operator ...

'' (2009) * ''

Julia Robinson Julia Hall Bowman Robinson (December 8, 1919July 30, 1985) was an American mathematician noted for her contributions to the fields of computability theory and computational complexity theory—most notably in decision problems. Her work on Hilbe ...

and Hilbert's Tenth Problem'' (2008) * ''Hard Problems: The Road to the World's Toughest Math Contest'' (2008) * '' N is a Number: A Portrait of Paul Erdős'' (1993) He worked with Scott Kim and Karl Schaffer to produce a series of films about string polyhedra and other recreational math topics.A series of short films by George Csicsery on string polyhedra and related work
mathdance.org

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Csicsery, George University of California, Berkeley alumni San Francisco State University alumni American documentary filmmakers Hungarian documentary filmmakers Mathematics popularizers 1948 births Living people American people of Hungarian descent