Parallel Stories Cultural Organization
Párhuzamos Történetek Kulturális Egyesület

Parallel Stories Cultural Organization (Párhuzamos Történetek Kulturális Egyesület) promotes new, story-based ways to understand and better our society. From single workshops to long-term international projects, we believe in the power of better narratives. When it comes to social justice and cultural values, we don’t only look at what we want to elevate and who is the audience we would like to reach, but we place an emphasis on how we are creating these narratives – stimulating new approaches to education, to the excavation and interpretation of cultural heritage, and to the engagement of new audiences. 

The founder of Parallel Stories is Barna Szász, a Budapest-born XR storyteller and documentary filmmaker. He moved to the U.S. in 2017 on a Fulbright and graduated from Stanford University’s MFA Documentary Film program in 2019. His documentary work has been acquired by PBS’s POV Shorts, The Guardian, Staff Picked at Vimeo, screened at DOC NYC, DOK Leipzig, CPH:DOX, Big Sky, and other festivals. Pushing the language of spatial storytelling, Barna’s currently working on two interactive AR documentary projects: as a 2021 CPH:LAB fellow he’s producing Kvöldvaka, a multi-sensory AR documentary that aims to redefine our relationship with nature, in the era of climate change. As an East Doc Interactive lab member, he’s developing If These Streets Could Talk, an immersive time travel experience to make the invisible Jewish history of European cities, including Budapest's Jewish heritage and Ghetto, visible. Before moving to the U.S., Barna earned a BA at the University of Film and Theatre Arts, Budapest. Then he worked as video journalist and later as Head of Video at Index.hu, the country’s equivalent of The New York Times. As a lecturer he’s taught Video Journalism at MOME Budapest, and XR at Stanford University, California.