Discoveries from Hungary World Cinema

Juli's mother is a strict religious person and she's forcing Juli to practice and follow her religious beliefs. The question is if here is an opportunity to break out from the world of this strict religion.

On the crowded train, the workers entertain each other by telling stories.

Savanyú and his friend work at a plant. After the monotonous shifts they engage in the pleasures of the afternoon and the night, i.e. parties and concerts. Savanyú dates Juli, they are already engaged. The young men live as sub-tenants, the young women in workers' hostels. None of these places are suited for spending time together. They are in need of an apartment. Out of the ruinous apartment which they lay siege on, however, they are sent away by the otherwise friendly policeman. At a concert held in the Park of Youth, Juli gets to know Géza. They flirt, then go to the country with a pop-group. Savanyú and his friends follow them. A minor fight cools the atmosphere.

In the closed world of a Catholic monastery shortly after World War II the post-war insecurity exacerbates the walls. A new world order has arrived. The monastic life begins to break down as some of the monks start to morally decline.

Csótány, the 30-year-old rocker, works as a locksmith's assistant. He lives with his aunt, who accepted him in her apartment in Pest, but Csótány can no longer contribute to the rent. His two biggest passions in life: his favorite Norwegian metal band, Pulzaar, and his secret love, Évike from the bakery downstairs. When he sees the poster that his beloved band is coming to Budapest, he is struck by lightning, which sets off a whole chain of events. Will he finally manage to get to the concert and gather all his courage to invite Éviké as well?

The twenty-year-old Gida, having just survived his first amorous disappointment, falls for Katinka, the young widow, at first sight.

A candid portrait of the women working at the Lőrinc spinning mill. As with so many of Mészáros’ shorts, this work has foundations in autobiography, and she would later return to this particular world in one of her fiction features.

A murder took place in 1961, a middle-aged man, father of a family, Dávid Sajgó, was found dead in his village gate in the morning. During the police investigation it was established that the murdered man had visited Anna Töre in the village the previous evening, had besieged her with a love proposal and had repeatedly proposed marriage. Anna Töre, who was a good-looking woman, had raised three children alone, by three different fathers, and was considered an eccentric in the community. She was suspected in the death.

A young Vietnamese woman named Song Ha arrives in Budapest to explore her roots and falls in love with Viktor, a Hungarian man.

The story is set in a block house area, where number of strange events take place. Everybody has something to hide, nobody is innocent. Only a little girl chooses to confront the forces of evil.

Every member of a small community in the snow-capped Bükk Mountains is trying to help the doctor get to István Simon forester's house where his wife is about to give birth to their first child.

"Free Fall" reflects to the times before the Shoah, the darkest chapter of the 20th century Hungary, based on the home movies of the talented musician, photographer and businessman, György Pető who made 8mm films from 1938.

Peter was a lonely boy who was mocked by his classmates for his glasses. When he found a pair of magical red glasses his life turned upside down. He met new friends, like the Pig and the Three-Headed Dragon, and started a wonderful, yet dangerous journey to the headquarter of the Game Creator, the World's most powerful video game developer. They believe he is the only one who can help the fairy tale heroes to survive by turning them into a video game character. "The Game Creator" is a unique take on a Broadway-style musical blockbuster performance.

In this Hungarian comedy post communist materialism is satirized. Someone in Hungary has won a large screen TV set. As they live in the country, it must be delivered from Budapest upon the back of an abandoned Russian military truck. The TV is turned on so that all the truck passes will see its perfect picture and hear its messages.

A horror short film about a man and a strange noise in his home.

Mr. Schneider became wealthy after the end of the communism, but still remained a simple man. Her wife although wants a lackey.

A Hungarian doctor, Dr. Hajnal, who always considered himself out of politics, falls in love with the Soviet intelligence agent, the radio operator Alba, operating in the occupied Wehrmacht of Hungary. By accident, the radio operator is hiding in the doctor’s house. Hainal is drawn into a life-threatening confrontation with the Germans. A difficult question arises before him: to remain neutral when people die around and Alba is threatened with death, or to remain an honest person — to make his personal choice and take part in this struggle.

Hilda is forced to follow helplessly the tragic death of her mountaineer husband Zsolt Eröss. As the heir of the deceased Hilda tries to cope with public expectations with her husband's attitude. It takes time for her to admit, that she needs help in dealing with the tragedy.

1629, Transylvania: Reigning prince Bethlen Gábor has Don Diego, the Spanish chronicle knight be brought to his court in order to make him record his life and deeds for posterity.

Two arts students, András and Viktor who are writing their thesis on detective stories, make up a story and keep nagging the famous film-director, who just came back from Hollywood, until he undertakes the job. At night they work on the film, in which two youths kill a director returning from the US. In the morning the director is found dead - a knife in his back.

Dressed as a gypsy woman, Krisztinka Oltay spies, organizes, and takes measures to help Prince Rákóczi and free his lover, Péter Szakmáry. Péter was taken in by his brother, who was loyal to the emperor, and he wants to execute him in Kassa together with the other Kurucs. Krisztinka inspires the tired kuruc troops with a song and Rákóczi's music to capture Kassa and free the prisoners...

The main character of the story which takes place in the twenties in Budapest is the poet Dr. Rácz György, who returns after ten years of absence. In a café he meets his former friend Lajos, who has just broken up with his lover, Márta, because of the wife of professor Büchler. The transiently formed, rootless Rácz gets entangled into the sophisticated, complicated love affairs of bored or tired ladies.

Lt. Kojak arrives in Budapest as a guest speaker for the 'International Crime Writers Conference'. Soon after he starts enjoying the pleasures that the city has to offer, he assists his old friends at the police department with a case. The case involves solving the murder of a noted scientist, unaware that a Mafia hit man and his female companion are targeting him.

A story about the Hungarian pioneers summer vacations.

Marguerite Gautier, a beautiful Parisian courtesan turned courtesan, falls in love with the son of a country nobleman of modest means. This ardent love makes her give up her former lifestyle and move to the country with the boy. Despite their financial problems, their blissful happiness is interrupted by the appearance of the father, who asks Marguerite to break off her love affair for the sake of the boy. She then returns to Paris and resumes her self-destructive lifestyle, which has a fatal effect on her health. Her lover's heartache only increases when the truth is revealed: she has sacrificed her happiness for his career.

The film takes place in a present-day small Hungarian village in the middle of nowhere. Strangers hardly ever come to this place, everything outside of it seems to be in another world for the inhabitants. But one day everything changes, when a stranger from Budapest enters the pub. He is on his way to a vacation in Portugal and wants to spend some days in this village. He soon starts a love affair with the pub owner's daughter. The ex-policeman of the village doesn't like this at all...

The ancient families of Kont and Hadhazy have long been at war with each other. Lord Cont is a supporter of Vienna's rule, while Hadhazy is a follower of the Hungarian revolutionary Kossuth. Lord plans to fight Hadhazy at an approaching county meeting. Vicky, the beautiful and savvy daughter of Hadhazy's family, just before this, returns home from a Swiss boarding school for young girls, expelled because of her behavior. Vicky, dressed in a man's costume, goes to defend her father and with the honor of a nobleman fights the young scion of a family hostile to her. The young man's name is Feri Kont, and he mistakes the young man's introduction to Vicky for her brother Kalman Hadhazy. The political conflicts between the two families are mitigated by love complications. A misunderstanding at a county ball is brought to light, and the two warring camps are reconciled through the love of Vicky and Feri.

Stephen, living in a troubled family, breaks into a grocery store and wreaks vandalism. He is sent to a reform school. Later he works in a cleaning brigade and accidentally meets József Draskóczi, who denounced him. Draskóczi lives in an unloving, troubled atmosphere with his barren daughter and cynical son-in-law, ascetic about his youthful communist beliefs. He feels responsible for Istvan's fate, offering him a human voice and love. Despite his daughter's hysterical jealousy, he sends Istvan to school and then, through his previous connections, provides him with an apartment...

In Luxoria Prince Igor is preparing to accede to the throne and choose his wife on his 24th birthday. The mother Duchess's candidate is Duchess Xenia, but Igor loves Annie, the soap-maker's daughter.

This film describes the narrator's childhood, the years before and after the Hungarian Soviet Republic, in a burlesque and fabulous style and with the humour of a child's fantasy.

Summer of 1956. In the small town in the Hungarian country-side, during the time the chief of police spends in a course in Budapest, Rigó Dezső is the boss with full powers. He is fighting tooth and nail to help the local football-team stay in the second national selection. During one of the matches, he beats the referee to death.

The sad tale of a proletarian malcontent ensconced in a monstrously depressing housing project who—even less effectually than the heroes of Bald-Dog Rock—attempts to change his life. Purchasing a power drill and slinging it across his shoulder like the anti-hero of a spaghetti western, he turns entrepreneur, boring holes in his neighbors’ walls so that they can hang mirrors or pictures.

The film has a broken meaning, the last time he was a proofreader for a book publisher, he is now unemployed. Ever since he was a child, he has always been the one who pulls the short one, and he takes the wrong one. At the beginning of the film, he finds himself in such a "bunbak" situation again, and then he decides to become a professional bunbak...

Benő Karácsony's best-known and most famous novel, The Sunny Side, was written in 1936. Its protagonist is Kázmér Felméri, at first a forced clerk, then a bumbling miller and talented sculptor, who, with his own unique outlook on life, lives his life in the greatest possible inner freedom among the typical characters of his small town in the typical milieu of the time.

1943. French POWs escape through Hungary towards the Balkan. Jacques and Gérard are caught and taken to an internment camp at Lake Balaton. Jacques meets Klári here, who was abandoned by her military officer husband for her Jewish origin. Both want to have a short affair, but love unfolds between them.

Two girls run away from a small village. Gyöngyi comes from an aristocratic family and her father throws her out of the house when he discovers she has gotten pregnant out of wedlock. She finds herself wandering the streets of Budapest and earns money playing the violin in a restaurant. Vica is an orphaned peasant; she is afraid of her stepfather and moves to the city where she gets a job on a construction site. Gyöngyi and Vica meet on the streets of Budapest, move in together and turn their lives around.

The tired traveler visits an old establishment, but he is not prepared for the horror that awaits him!

The movie is based on a short story by V. Kataev. A young tractor driver Duri loves Dorka, the daughter of the owner of a ring-throwing attraction. The girl's father is against the marriage. Durie makes a cunning plan: he starts practicing ring throwing. At the opening of the attraction, Durie takes part in the ring toss and wins prize after prize, which he immediately hands out to the people around him. Dorka's father allows Dury to marry Dorka to save his business from ruin.

Ágnes, Vass and Kriszt run a sanatorium for consumptives. Fifi, daughter of the institute owner is also here, mortally ill. Feri, the ski trainer relieves her with his courtship every now and then from her boredom and distress.

Gazsi, the protagonist of the novel, comes from the very edge of the society of the small village; he is an unliveable, helpless, simple-minded person. The only thing he dreams of is a rabbit paprika. However, when the dream could come true, as he takes part in a hunt, Gazsi takes the side of the persecuted and saves the rabbit Paprikás.

Eva goes to Budapest to visit her friend Tini's wedding but as soon as she arrives, the husband-to-be breaks up with Tini. When Eva decides to take things into her own hand and follows him to the Hotel Atlantik.

The internationally acclaimed director and recipient of the Erasmus Award in 2007, Péter Forgács created a documentary exploring the fate of hundred thousands of Hungarian men and women who arrived to the United States between 1890 and 1921. To tell their sagas Forgács weaved this grand epic from the early American cinema, found footage, photographs and interviews. The film reveals the difficult moments of arrival, integration and assimilation, which eventually fed the happiness of the later generations and their fulfillment of the American dream.

Vörös Hajnal (Red Dawn), a co-operative is the venue of skylarking, while the storm destroys the wheat which is to be harvested soon. Árendás, a middle-peasant, voices severe accusations against members of the co-operative: out of negligence, they failed to keep the ditches clean. It is always the soft option they seem to favour, while the necessity of properly taking care of the farmlands is long-forgotten. Members of the co-operative and the village people are deeply divided.

Don Juan, the seducer, is cursed by the governor of Seville: he can only live until a woman rejects him. Thanks to this curse, Don Juan has been living in bliss for 400 years when he arrives in Budapest. Of course, in the new city he chooses a new girl to conquer, Kata Lukacs. The experienced heartthrob used all tricks and tricks, but it seems that none of this has an effect on Kata.

Stephen, living in a troubled family, breaks into a grocery store and wreaks vandalism. He is sent to a reform school. Later he works in a cleaning brigade and accidentally meets József Draskóczi, who denounced him. Draskóczi lives in an unloving, troubled atmosphere with his barren daughter and cynical son-in-law, ascetic about his youthful communist beliefs. He feels responsible for Istvan's fate, offering him a human voice and love. Despite his daughter's hysterical jealousy, he sends Istvan to school and then, through his previous connections, provides him with an apartment...

From the fire in the school twelve years ago, Uncle Eu' rescued seven kids, among them his own daughter, Anita, who became mute. Uncle Eu' was taken by the police four years after the fire and he returned in a wheelchair. Now he is dying and according to his wish the seven youth stand guards in shifts at his bed.

During the fall of the Soviet Union a young Hungarian boy falls in love with an American girl, when she comes for a short visit to her parent's old town in Hungary. In order to see her again, the 13 year-old boy decides to create a special machine that could transport him to the USA.

An unlikely hero sets off to save the beautiful Boglárka from the dragon who kidnapped her.

Out of the three-part burlesque, the only surviving one is the one called Pufi would buy a pair of shoes, with Hungarian inserts. The film is shot on a real-life location, in a Budapest shoe shop, and it portrays the mutual efforts of a puny sales assistant and Pufi, the bladder-of-lard customer, to find him a suitable pair of shoes. The content of the other two parts is not known.

This biopic traces the life of Dr. József Béres from the development of the "Béres drops" to his struggles under the Communist regime in Hungary.

Two old men enter an abandoned synagogue, look at the decay around them, and pray.

Lilian, daughter of an English millionaire threatens her father that she will marry the first shady character turning up around her and will sing in bars just because her father wants her to marry someone whom she does not love.