Csaba Káel 

Csaba Káel is a Hungarian film director and CEO of Müpa Budapest. He has received numerous honours, including the Award for Music Video of the Year in 1991, Béla Bartók Memorial Prize in 2008, Kálmán Nádasdy Prize in 2013 and Kossuth Prize in 2020. In 2018, he was appointed as the Cultural Tourism Ambassador of Budapest.

After serving as a manager at the Balázs Béla Film Studio from 1989 and 1990, he went on to work at Novofilm Kft between 1990 and 1993. In 1990, he took part in the East-West Producers Seminar in London under the tutelage of Lynda Myles and David Puttnam. In 1990, he founded the Happy End Advertising Agency, later becoming its Creative Director.

A member of the Association of Independent Hungarian Producers from 1995 to 1998, he became founder and executive director of Z+ Hungarian Music Television. In 2001 and 2002, he served as Artistic Advisor for the Millenáris Theatre and Television Studio, where he developed the core concept for that institution. Starting in 2002, he spent two years back at the (by then) University of Theatre and Film Arts working on his DLA before joining Müpa Budapest in 2005 as an Artistic Advisor responsible for putting together the institution's opera programmes.

He has been the CEO of Müpa Budapest since 17 March 2011, and between 2013 and 2020 he was appointed Chairman of the body that runs both the Budapest Spring Festival and the CAFe Budapest Contemporary Arts Festival. Káel has been a member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts since 2014. On 1 September 2019 he was appointed Government Commissioner for the advancement of the Hungarian cinema industry and the National Film Institute was founded under his leadership. In 2020 he was elected as a member of the International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (IATAS), the organisation which presents the International Emmy Awards, often described as the “Oscar of television industry”. In 2021 the Bartók Spring International Art Weeks and the Liszt Fest International Cultural Festival were founded with his direction.

Since 1987, Csaba Káel has not only directed multiple films but has also worked on various types of productions, including operas, prosaic and musical theatre works. His film works include Kötéltáncos a szocializmusban (Walking the Tightrope in the Era of Socialism) and Szól a világ (The Sound of the World), his musical theatre directions include Verdi’s La Forza di Destino and Puccini’s Madama Butterfly at the Müpa Budapest in 2007 and 2008 respectively, Bizet’s Carmen at the National Theatre of Győr in 2012, and Károly Goldmark’s Die Königin von Saba (production by the Hungarian State Opera) at the Tel Aviv Performing Arts Center in 2018.

Káel has worked with artists such as José Cura, Leo Nucci, Éva Marton, Renato Bruson, Erika Miklósa. He has staged several pre-classical operas in productions by the Purcell Chorus and Orfeo Orchestra conducted by György Vashegyi, including Monteverdi's L’Orfeo, the inaugural performance at Müpa Budapest's Festival Theatre.