About Us

Andrea Lauer Rice and Réka Pigniczky co-founded Memory Project, a community-wide initiative, in 2015. Both daughters of 1956-ers, Andrea and Réka have known each other for the past 25 years. Memory Project is their joint project to help document and record the personal stories of Hungarians who emigrated to the United States after the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and as displaced persons after World War II. Within the past two years, they expanded their outreach to include Hungarian Americans with fascinating stories about their upbringing and other inspirational and unique interviews with Hungarians across the world. 

info@56films.hu


Réka Pigniczky is a television journalist, producer and independent documentary filmmaker. To date she has created 3 films dealing with 1956, immigration, and dual-identity. ‘Journey Home’ won awards in Hungary and was invited to screen at a number of international film festivals. ‘Inkubátor’ was voted one of the 25 best films released in Hungary in 2010. ‘Heritage’ is the prequel to the Memory Project.

While the movie “Journey Home” tells the moving story of her Father’s role in the ’56 Revolution, Réka never interviewed him herself. And now that he has passed away, that opportunity is lost. Through this project, she hopes to record other people’s stories so that no one else will miss the opportunity to hear these stories in the words of the people who lived them.

Réka has an MA in international affairs and journalism from Columbia University in New York. Her film website is www.rekapigniczky.com.

Andrea Lauer Rice is a multimedia producer, author and speaker, who focuses on teaching the next generation through new and innovative ways. On the topic of 1956, her multimedia credits include:

  • FF56! – an educational computer game;
  • “Freedom Fighters of ’56!” – a historically-accurate graphic novel;
  • www.FreedomFighter56.com – oral history site;
  • and  “56 Stories – Personal Recollections of the Revolution” – a coffee table book in both Hungarian and English.

Andrea grew up hearing stories about 1956 from her mother, aunt, grandparents and other family members who participated. Her challenge is finding ways to bridge the gap – building a bridge between Hungarians and Americans, between spouses and parents and children. She tries to answer the question, how does one generation effectively pass on heritage and traditions to the next.

Andrea has an MBA from Goizueta Business School at Emory University and a BA in Journalism from Lehigh University. Her website is www.lauerlearning.com.