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Within the context of the XX CSAV - Artists' Research Laboratory, Béla Tarr was invited as a lecturer by Tacita Dean, Annie Ratti, and Simone Menegoi. The lecture of the Hungarian filmmaker begun with the screening of the short film Prologue (2004) and then followed the format of an open dialogue among the director, the participant artists, and the audience of the event.

Béla Tarr was born in 1955 in Pécs, Hungary. He started working in film as amateur, at the age of 16. In 1977 Tarr directed his first feature film, Family Nest (Családi tűzfészek, 1977). This film, along with The Outsider (Szabadgyalog, 1981) and The Prefab People (Panelkapscolat, 1982), constitutes the first phase of Bela Tarr's work, characterized by social issues and documentary style.
In the mid 1980s, he started a collaboration with the writer László Krasznahorkai, whose works were the basis of a series of Tarr's films, among which Damnation (Kárhozat, 1988), Satan's Tango (Sátántangó, 1994) and Werckmeister Harmonies (Werckmeister Hármoniák, 2000). During these years Tarr developed the visual style for which he is known today: a distinctive black-and-white photographic approach, and long, slow shots, which culminated in his masterpiece, the seven-and-a-half hour long Satan's Tango.
The film The Turin Horse (A torinói ló, 2011), which he announced several years ago as the last film he will make, was presented at the Berlin Film Festival, and was awarded of the Grand Jury Prize - the Silver Bear, as well as the FIPRESCI Prize.
Among the several awards won by Béla Tarr there are: 1979 Mannheim-Heidelberg International Film Festival, Grand Prize for: Family Nest (1977), 1984 Locarno International Film Festival, Ernest Artaria Award for: Almanac of Fall (1984), 1994 Caligari Film Award for: Satan's Tango (1994), 2001 Hungarian Film Week, "Gene Moskowitz" Critics Award and the Grand Prize for: Werckmeister Harmonies (2000), 2002 Hungarian Film Critics Awards, László B. Nagy Award for: Werckmeister Harmonies (2000), 2003 Jerusalem Film Festival, Lifetime Achievement Award, 2005 Andrzej Wajda Freedom Award, American Cinema Foundation, 2011 Istanbul International Film Festival Honorary Award2011 FIPRESCI Berlin International Film Festival, for: The Turin Horse (2011), and Silver Berlin Bear Jury Grand Prix for The Turin Horse (2011).