Andras Hamori, Producer of ‘The Sweet Hereafter’ and ‘eXistenZ,’ Dies at 71

Andras Hamori, the Hungarian film and television producer whose credits included Atom Egoyan‘s The Sweet Hereafter, István Szabó’s Sunshine and David Cronenberg’s eXistenZ, has died. He was 71.

Hamori died Sept. 2 in Budapest after a long illness that prevented him from working in recent years, his friend Mia Taylor announced.

Hamori, who worked out of Toronto early in his career and was a partner in Alliance Entertainment, also guided the cult horror classic The Gate (1987), starring Stephen Dorff in his first major role; Stephen Frears’ Chéri (2009), starring Michelle Pfeiffer; and the 2014 History Channel miniseries Houdini, starring Adrien Brody.

The Sweet Hereafter (1997), which earned Egoyan Oscar nominations for best director and adapted screenplay, revolved around a school bus accident in a Canadian town that killed 14 children.

Sunshine (1999) told the story of several generations of a Jewish family set against the backdrop of Hungarian history. It starred Ralph Fiennes, was nominated for three Golden Globes and won Canada’s Genie Award for best picture.

After teaming with Cronenberg on Crash (1996), Hamori reunited with the iconic Canadian filmmaker on eXistenZ (1999), starring Jennifer Jason Leigh as a woman caught in a deadly video game that she had created.

Hamori was born on July 17, 1953, in Budapest as the only son of Sandor and Zsuzsa, a Jewish couple who survived the Nazi occupation of Hungary and met and married after World War II.

He worked as a film critic and made several short films in the 1970s, but his ambition was to be a movie producer. Hungarian-Canadian theater director John Hirsch encouraged him to come to Toronto, and he defected in 1981, moving into Hirsch’s basement.

In Toronto, he worked for producer and fellow Hungarian Robert Lantos and eventually became a partner in Alliance.

Later, Hamori moved to Los Angeles to launch H2O Motion Pictures and returned to Hungary as the producer he had aspired to be, shooting projects in his home country. He also gave himself the occasional cameo in his films.

His résumé included The Magic Hunter (1994), from Hungarian director Ildikó Enyedi; Lynne Ramsay’s Morvern Callar (2002); Max (2002), starring John Cusack; Owning Mahowny (2003), starring Philip Seymour Hoffman; Fateless (2005), directed by Lajos Koltai; Fugitive Pieces (2007), starring Rosamund Pike; and Formula 51 (2001) and The Samaritan (2012), both starring Samuel L. Jackson.

Survivors include his children, Chloe, Ben and Jake.