Hungary

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Márta Mészáros is without doubt one of the most significant female directors from Central Europe. Her outspoken works deal frankly with issues of gender, politics and society.

Adoption is a story of the hushed rebellion of two strong women, fortysomething Kata and orphaned teenager Anna. Kata longs to have a child of her own, but rejected by her married lover, Kata looks into adoption. She befriends troubled teen Anna, also determined to start a new life for herself, and the two women soon form a strong and unexpected kinship.

The first female director to win the Golden Bear at the Berlinale, Mészáros’ film is without any hint of artifice; no grand occurrences, no heavyweight discussions of issues, a film quiet and truthful in the best way.Read More »

Juli (Ilona Schuetz) is a 17-year-old student who takes a summer job in a local chemical factory.
She is befriended by Piri (Adit Soos), a girl with an unsavory reputation who has worked there
before. The two friends are ogled by male workers who have overactive libidos and imaginations.
Juli spurns the advances of a deluded Romeo while Piri continues to work and endure open hostility
from the older female workers while her slothful parents sink deeper into alcoholism. The title
is taken from a popular Hungarian song.Read More »

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A young immigrant is shot down while illegally crossing the border. Terrified and in shock, wounded Aryan can now mysteriously levitate at will. Thrown into a refugee camp, he is smuggled out by Dr Stern, intent on exploiting his extraordinary secret. Pursued by enraged camp director Laszlo, the fugitives remain on the move in search of safety and money. Inspired by Aryan’s amazing powers, Stern takes a leap of faith in a world where miracles are trafficked for small change.Read More »

Description: – ”The 40 Labor [the manufacturer firm] as a faithful conservative reaches back – his generation only – to the tradition looking like the lost one. To the twentyfold years’ avantgarde, the ones of sixty filmlanguage-his narration revolution, to the seventy ones’ experimentation. And to the postmodern one which recalling was kept always, for which all this fits shakily under the world’s big umbrella, ( everything else – and the contrary of everything – too).
Buharov brothers strong and effective pictures are dreamed onto the linen, their work lasts caught if we understand nothing from him. We do not recognise their world’s rules, we feel it though these rules his strength.” – Báron GyörgyRead More »

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It is the 15th c. in Hungary. And young prince Gaspar (Laszlo Galffy) was sent off to Italy when he was just two years old, and now he has come back to his father’s castle as a grown man, with a troupe of actors in tow. Once arrived at the castle, he discovers his mother is in a kind of trance state, reportedly drinking the blood of virgins to keep her forever young (just like the infamous Bloody Lady Elizabeth Bathory). Gaspar’s father has died in very mysterious circumstances – some say it was a bear that killed him (another symbolical, legendary animal in European lore) and others say he was done in by the Turks. Meanwhile, his uncle says the trance-like queen was really in love with him – and sometimes he says not. Yet they marry, and when she comes out of her mesmerized state for awhile she tells Gaspar that just like his friends, none of the castle’s inhabitants are real, they are all actors and she is actually younger than he is – and then she falls back into her trance. As Gaspar seems to have nowhere to turn, a Turk comes into the picture to test him for his worthiness to rule, and says he (the Turk) is really Gaspar’s father. The tests turn out negative, and Gaspar is told he cannot be king. There seems to be no choice but to leave the castle with his troupe of actors, and as the castle opens up onto a vast field, he and his friends – and an underhanded Turkish priest – make a dash for freedom, hoping to elude the weaponry of the Turkish guards behind them. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie GuideRead More »

The experimental film takes place in North-Caroline. In the last days of the American civil war three characteristic figures of the 1849 Hungarian emigration fight: the geographer artillery officer Fiala János, the rational scientist, Vereczky Ádám, the heroic fatalist and the attendant of Fiala: the emotional Boldogh, who struggles with homesickness. The fate of all the “”slowed down”” revolutionaries is hopeless. The boasting Vereczky dies a meaningless death on a huge swing which he was able to survey with the theodolite. Boldogh longs for home, maybe to die, while there is only one possibility for Fiala: he can participate in the construction works of the Pacific railway.Read More »

Hédi is the wealthy landlady of a house in which resides her money-demanding son János, her nurse Anna and Anna’s boyfriend Miklós, and the elderly and financially troubled teacher Tibor. A large, claustrophobic apartment is the setting for this intense chamber drama that is one of Béla Tarr’s most revered films. In this dense setting, the inhabitants of the apartment reveal their darkest secrets, fears, obsessions and hostilities.Read More »

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A journalist specialising in criminal cases, trained in the United States and very well-connected in police circles, Zsigmond Gordon (the incredible Krisztián Kolovratnik) has no interest in politics. Described as cynical by his family, he considers himself to be more of a realist who only trusts himself. Always keeping an eye out for the slightest sign of a corpse on the horizon, Gordon is obsessed with the prospect of making the headlines by dealing with “the destiny of those for whom death is the last stop.” And as you may have guessed, a fitting case pops up following the discovery of the body of an unknown woman (Franciska Törocsik), abandoned in the courtyard of a dodgy neighbourhood. Read More »

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In a small, dilapidated village in 1990s Hungary, life has come to a virtual stand-still. The Autumn rains have started. A few of the villagers expect to receive a large cash payment that evening, and then plan to leave. Some want to abscond earlier with more than their fair share of the money. However they hear that the smooth-talking Irimias, who they thought had died, is returning. They are apprehensive that he will take all their money in one of his grandiose schemes to keep the community going.Read More »