Discoveries from Hungary World Cinema

Music video for A Hawk and a Hacksaw's The Magic Spring, directed by Peter Strickland.

The heroines of this lyric comedy full of burlesque elements are two girls from a village who get totally engrossed in their day-dreaming. Ida and Rozi escape to the city to catch husbands for themselves.

In a near-future Hungary where citizens are legally required to end their lives at age seventy, a documentary crew follows an elderly man as he approaches his final days. Blending dark humor with social satire, Linda Dombrovszky's mockumentary explores aging, dignity, and the human cost of a society obsessed with efficiency and control.

Comedy about a man whose face is stuck in a grimace after making a ‘lemon face’.

Barta has been investigating for a year in the murder case of a professor of medicine. Keller, the victim, has been shot dead in his own villa. Barta joins the closest relatives and they all travel to Dunaszentmárton by ship for the inaugural ceremony of his tomb.

Lili's brother is released from prison, and she tries to get him out of the country as quickly as possible so that he can start a new life. The film tries to portray the helplessness and helplessness of the young people of the 80s who don't know what to do with themselves.

An action packed, brightly colored film depicting the adventures of a six-year-old boy attending school for the first time. He befriends a little girl, Zizi, who becomes his constant companion in a child's world of discovery.

Miklos, a magazine photographer, has a hard time finding the girl of his dreams. But in the summer of 1992 in Budapest, he meets Dora at a club and feels a strange attraction to her. But he feels no compulsion in pursuing the relationship. They meet more by chance than by design.

Two security guards are holding a job interview in their downstairs office at a prominent club in Budapest while the Saturday night party is at full blast upstairs. A former arm-wrestling champion, Jani is applying to become a bouncer. The interview backfires and shortly afterwards a drunk girl falls victim of an incident on the dance floor. The stakes become higher when it turns out who she really is.

The spring of 1919. Karikás Frigyes reorganises brigade 39 at the Tisza. His most devoted soldiers are Korbély János and his followers, who remain faithful to the political commissioner under all circumstances.

The elite of political and business life of the country town gather to celebrate the namesday of László in the luxury villa. Everything begins just as usual, but now an incident disturbs the stag party.

A wall-painting on Earth is too terrifying to exist, so unknown forces remove it.

A documentary about Hungarian prisoners of war in the World War II

After even his seventh fiancée dismisses him, Pali, longing for marriage and four children, falls in love with a Siamese diseuse and decides to marry her.

Komora, a young painter and his friends, Mari, a teacher, and the elderly doctor, Szabó, buy a barrack-building situated at the foot of the stone mine of Badacsony. Earlier, the place served as an internment camp. Now, they intend to establish a camp with workshop sessions for fine artists. Mari and the painter fall in love.

Bencsik Béla, the president of the co-operative of the village of Borsány promises home, jobs and good salaries for newcomer families to convince them to settle down. He wants to prevent the community from being depopulated and the co-operative from going bankrupt.

Baradla Géza, war criminal, returns after 25 years, with his ex-accomplice, Obrád Simon, to the village where he burned houses with people inside and executed partisans. The ex squad-leader is chased to this place by his "heroic deed" and the memory of his love. Like a maniac, he wants to forgive the village residents for having killed six of his soldiers.

A wordless vacation on a catamaran between a Father and his Son, where the Captain sails the boat while they both relax.

The story of a quirky love affair between Angi, an independent, no-nonsense social worker from a working-class district of Budapest and, Ildikó, a young mother who recently separated from her husband.

Children asked God's help for quarreling parents. Cupid came for them.

Early Curtiz feature

Computers, TVs, cel tels and other telecom devices no longer work and the people are suffering severe withdrawal pains. Three brothers try to overcome their own major personal problems as the society slowly begins to find alternative ways of living.

In post–World War I Europe, drifter Jim Jeffries, son of a disgraced stock speculator, stumbles into high society at a London palace card party and parlayed his luck into wealth, only to lose it all in a cutthroat Chinese port and end up in prison. Upon release, he secretly marries the resourceful Jane, reinvents himself in America as Riche Richson, and, newly prosperous, reunites with Jane, now companion to a millionaire’s daughter, on a whirlwind transatlantic adventure that proves fortune can favor the bold.

A true story of a prisoner of the Siberian Gulag about hope. About hope, that we can stay human beings during the cruelest suffering.

"Helfer" portrays the relationship of a helper and an anxious young woman through symbolic events set in a surrealistic world. The young woman is haunted by recurring nightmares, from which she seeks a permanent solution. The helper offers her an alternative proposition, during which she has to face her deapest fears

Fred, Lilian and their young daughter Luzi are enjoying a wonderful vacation in Argentina. During their stay at the “Punta Grande”, the smallest hotel in the world, each of them experiences their own individual catharsis.

The story, which was motivated by the Spanish flu epidemy in 1918, goes about total helplessness. In a non-identifiable country at the beginning of the century an organisation kidnaps a doctor from his apartment and alongside with several others transports him into a camp.

After a long night, Dj Feaky D loses a large sum of money on poker. When an old friend offers a "great opportunity of easy money", he calls up on his buddies locked away in a mental institution.

A group of young journalists takes on the state propaganda.

SUPERMAN is an early performance experimentation with video as mirror.

In the 1600s, Hungary is plundered by the Turks and the Laban. Kecskemét, the free royal city, is not exempt from this. Miska, the wily son of Lestyák, a master tailor, suggests to the town council that they should ask for a permanent beacon from Buda, thus protecting Kecskemét from the harassment of raiding troops. The town assembles its gift of jewellery, cloth and a beautiful girl, and Miska sets off for Buda. On the way, the young gypsy girl falls in love with Mishka, who elopes with her in a boy's dress. He can do this because instead of the bewitchment he hopes for, he is given only a fancy robe to protect the city. Little do they know at the time how much the robe is worth. Before its wearer, all true believers will crumble to dust and do his bidding.

Peter Forgacs' Bibo Breviarium (Istvan Bibo's Fragments) is a look at Istvan Bibo, one of the most revered Hungarian philosophers and politicians of the 20th century. The images in the film consist of found footage from the man's life, while the audio consists of an ongoing monologue that alternates between biographical information on the man and quotes from his writings. Paul Merrick performs the narration on the English translation of the film.

During the freedom fight led by Rákóczi, Schwartzenau carries the wages of the Emperor's soldiers to Tokaj. A small group of freedom-fighters, led by Captain Árvay, attack the major's escort, then hide in the local inn. Árvay introduces himself to the entering Schartzenau as a Hungarian aristocrat, while Simon Pali rushes to get help. The major has a passion for games, they start throwing dice.

Jack, Angelica and the relentless Captain Maynard race to claim the Lamp of Secrets. Familiar allies and rivals resurface, new bonds are forged and the seas hide powers no pirate has ever faced. Taking place after Dead Men Tell No Tales, Secrets of the Lamp is a fan film continuing the franchise with respect and passion.

Two relationship dramas run parallel - the issue of having children that ties them together and the issue of having children that tears them apart. Perhaps they have more in common: a fear of commitment, of responsibility, of loneliness, of each other and of themselves. What they have in common is what tears them apart. Their inability to live together, their inability to be honest.

Iván Berend works with all his skills in the coal mine he inherited from his father. Fate brings him to fall in love with the beautiful Evila, the daughter of one of the miners. A wealthy Viennese banker, Félix Kaulmann, then buys up the Bondavölgy coalfield for money, but he cannot acquire Iván Berend's mine for the time being. To defeat his opponent, he comes up with a cunning plan. He takes Evila with him to the Austrian capital, then opens the new mine, luring Berend's best colleagues to him with a little more money. But he doesn't count on one thing.

A satirical tale of the adaptation, casting and rehearsal of a theatrical version of Winnie-the-Pooh.

Viola, a young woman who had unexpectedly become successful is searching for her own femininity in her relationship, but an accidental encounter with a non-binary person makes her realize that she has been on the wrong track all along.

The subway driver Szabó János is tired of conflicts, that so many other people across the town share the same name, so he decides to kill all of them, that he will be the only one left.

The father of Füge goes to Africa to take a job and he leaves his old Mercedes with him to taxi with it. The band of Füge appears in the Tabán with moderate success.

An animated version of the Aesop fable.

Leia can't seem to find anything in her surroundings that would help her get some inspiration for her drawing. She feels stuck and burnt out until she has a dream that finally gives her the motivation she needed. She then realizes that you can't force art, it comes unexpectedly and naturally.