Hungary

Historical drama, based on a true story, set in Vienna in 1847. It revolves around medical pioneer Ignác Semmelweis, a short-tempered but passionate Hungarian doctor struggling to find a cure for a mysterious fever that is killing patients—mothers and their babies—in the maternity ward he oversees. His considerable ambition and his research method soon draw the disfavour of his superiors, who order him to stop. They even enlist a young midwife named Emma to secretly spy on him. After a turbulent first encounter, the relationship between Ignác and Emma grows into something more than merely professional. As the fever spreads and with half his peers discrediting him, the tenacious doctor carries on his fight to discover a cure, with Emma by his side. Meanwhile, outside the hospital walls, a social powder keg of political and revolutionary forces is about to explode.Read More »

Kornél Mundruczó’s second feature uses improvisatory techniques and memorable imagery to tell this story of youngsters sweating out one summer in a small Hungarian town.

Péter (Tamás Polgár) is just out of prison and is unenamoured with life on the outside. When he witnesses a woman secretly giving birth on the floor of a laundrette, it sets in motion a tricky emotional triangle composed of himself, the child’s mother Maja (Tóth Orsi) and his sister Marika (Kata Wéber), with whom he seems incestuously close.Read More »

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A downbeat, hypnotic retelling of Mankind’s story from Adam and Eve to the present, played entirely by children. But don’t expect a romp — these kids are deadly serious as they tackle issues of mortality, religion, and the struggle of class against class. Brilliant photography enhances the deliberate pacing, yet the film is never boring. Literary sources include Emily Dickinson and William Blake, and every line is delivered with full conscious intention. Especially effective is the Byzantium sequence, where a single syllable (homousios, or homoiousios) means the difference between life and death. Seldom has the narcotic influence of religious power been so effectively portrayed. The use of a cast composed entirely of children is a conceit that lends itself to preciousness, but here it succeeds without the least trace of “cuteness”. In sum, a daring, challenging, and ultimately worthwhile experiment.Read More »

This strange Hungarian film is a cross between a “candid camera” documentary and a surreal fantasy. The film’s two actors impersonate traveling portrait photographers visiting a small Hungarian village. There is an uncanny congruence between the peasants’ favored forms of photographic expression and the antique photographs that they are shown as examples of the kind of work they can hire. This becomes unsettling as the film shows the peasants of today investigating pictures of the peasants of yesteryear and looking exactly the same.Read More »

The Fifth Seal (Az ötödik pecsét) is a 1976 film by Hungarian director Zoltán Fábri based on the 1963 novel of the same name by Hungarian author Ferenc Sánta. It won the Golden Prize at the 10th Moscow International Film Festival and it was entered into the 27th Berlin International Film Festival. It tells a story set in the closing days of World War II in which five friends meet in a local cafe in Hungary. When one of them makes a disparaging political remark that is overheard and reported to the Arrow Cross soldiers, their own beliefs about freedom and dignity are tested when they are imprisoned, tortured and offered freedom only if they slap the face of a dying Communist partisan.Read More »

imdb wrote:
The heroes of the story, which takes place in the present, are young people about to graduate. After prom, the fourth-graders escape to a private party, then return to school together for a farewell spree, during which a fire breaks out in the classroom. Due to the style of school investigation, students whose human and personal rights have been repeatedly violated leave the school building without permission during class. They are organized with a huge ambition to change the world together. While graduation only affects them emotionally, the baccalaureate exam turns them into individuals who recognize their individual interests.Read More »

It’s summer in Budapest, high school student Abel is struggling to focus on his final exams, whilst coming to the realisation that he is hopelessly in love with his best friend Janka. The studious Janka has her own unrequited love with married history teacher Jakab—who had a previous confrontation with Abel’s conservative father. The tensions of a polarised society come unexpectedly to the surface when Abel’s history graduation exam turns into a national scandal.Read More »

The story of two elderly sisters who exchange letters, and through brief flashbacks we see glimpses of their younger years.Read More »

Shot in 1972, this remarkable documentary was released ten years later and had its first Western film festival screenings last year. “Gyula Gazdag is an outstanding Hungarian talent who seems to specialize in getting into trouble. This film, which he made with Judit Ember, another alert and sensitive director, was banned for ten years. In it, a rural community is in financial trouble and an expert from Budapest is sent to advise and reorganize. He is successful but his manner angers the local committee. Despite their own management failure, they feel his arrogance should be the subject of a reprimand at least.Read More »