Discoveries from Hungary World Cinema

Benjamin and Franklin are two brothers. One day, Franklin meets Joseph, who offers to pay them any amount of money if Franklin and Benjamin go into the forest and defeat three monsters.

Krisztián’s old friend returns home to sell his childhood houose. For a moment, everything feels just as it used to be: the streets, the faces, the stupid jokes. For one day, they forget the weight of growing up. But eventually, the time comes to leave the nest.

A surrealist satire describing the power that is used to dehumanise and deny individual liberties in the name of order and the common good.

Dreamlike images of a couple's life related to their involuntary separation. Letters that fly like birds to the man who struggles in the loneliness of the big city. Letters that sink into the wells of bureaucracy.

Szegedi Anna, a lawyer having just arrived back from Naples wants to divorce his husband, also a lawyer, because since a hot night she has only been thinking of Laczkó, the handsome businessman.

Kovács, chief cashier, is celebrating the 30th anniversary of his school-leaving exams at the grammar-school. He takes his friends to a night-club.

This European Film Award winner documentary tells the story of Recsk, Hungary's most notorious political prison camp, which operated between 1950 and 1953. During the early 1950's the very existence of this camp for political prisoners at Recsk was one of the Hungarian communist regime's deepest secrets. Hundreds of people were taken there without ever actually being sentenced by any court, and had to suffer through the brutal treatment handed down by their sadistic captors. This documentary tells the story of Recsk from both the captors' and the prisoners' point of view, capturing the atmosphere of paranoia, humiliation and degradation that prevailed throughout the Stalinist gulag system.

A comedy about a group of children who are spending summer vacation alone in the nature.

This social Drama tells the parallel stories of three families in rural Hungary today. The stories of a rich businessman, Árpád, his wife Franciska and their daughter Babita, a photographer called Gábor, his ceramist girlfriend Edina and a prison priest. Their destinies are linked. Many of them live or have lived in the same city and their lives upended by the secrets and crimes that are revealed over a period of 10 years.

A prominent conductor's nervous breakdown leads to love in this thoughtful Hungarian romantic drama. For sometime, Landos, a noted conductor, has suffered anxiety and a lack of confidence about his work. The problem is made worse by his wife's successful dental practice. Eventually it becomes too overwhelming and the conductor is sent to a mental hospital for rest. There he encounters clinical psychologist Andrea Novak. At first she seems colder than alpine snow, but when he sneaks out to return to work and she finds him there, things quickly turn hot. The two become engulfed in passion that they ignore their own spouses and professions, causing Novak to be formally reprimanded. Eventually Landos finds himself forced to choose between his wife and Novak. Unfortunately, he loves them both. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

After the Turkish empire's fall a small Greek diaspora fertilized the Hungarian capital city of Pest in the 19th century. This Greeks are involved all of the major investments of that time. For example Chain Bridge could not had been built without a Greek trader family, the Sina's money.

"Who are you, wonderful creature, Who are you, man? The garment of your soul A bright robe woven of starry rays, And your body Worn rags cover your body. Your family is hungry, you are hungry yourself, And it is your Sunday, If soft bread should chance to be On your tableclothless table, And what is there for you and yours Thou canst not get, The world at large Thou strivest to make the world happy."

Don Juan Tenorio finds himself at the gate of Hell, where he is confronted with the consequences of his 1003 seductions.

The millionaire grandson of entrepreneur Dénes Bartos is hired as a tutor. Gábor Horváth Horváth of Monori, a doctor, drops his Monori name and goes down to Bartos Castle as Gábor Horváth to earn money to become independent of his industrialist father. His apprentice Gyurika is not the cutest kid, it has to be said, but his sister Lilian is really beautiful... And that's enough for a romantic, peaceful film.

Pataky Elemér arrives in the capital as a victim in his niece's divorce case. Having to meet the lawyer dr. Orbói István is, however, an alibi in an effort to get away from his quarrelsome wife, and to have some fun at the same time. He takes the lawyer with him.

This film comedy takes place in the good old times of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy at the turn of the century. Bányai, an impecunious clerk suddenly finds himself to be able to make perfect imitations of ornaments on the bank-notes. Being spurred by his incessantly shrewish mother-in-law, he finds a solution to his family's financial problems overnight, but an ambitious detective becomes suspicious of him.

This audio-visual universe peppered with Laozi quotations and made in Balázs Béla Studio represents the culmination of artistic self-expression of János Tóth. It is a self-selected auteur anthology of four of his experimental films.

A baker-turned-millionaire mill owner constantly fires directors who all end up neglecting the business and falling for his daughter Zsuzsi. When Peter returns from abroad to take over as the new director, swearing he won’t ask for her hand, Zsuzsi seizes every chance to make sure he breaks his promise.

Peter, Katalin, and their dog are playing ball in front of the zoo. In a moment of distraction, Peter's puppy kicks the ball over the fence. The larger wild animals do not appreciate his cheeky behavior and decide to teach him a lesson.

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.

An actor shows up for the last audition of the day; the director's last chance to get the performance he wants.

Animated Short film by István Orosz and Dóra Keresztes.

The film is a story of a double journey. The main character of the first journey is the author himself, who, while sitting in his customary café, suddenly realises that he has hallucinations. The psychologist reassures him that all this is merely repression. The symptoms, however, appear again. Soon it turns out that the author has a brain tumour. Professor Pötzl in Vienna suggests operation right away. The intervention, through which he is awake, is carried out in a Stockholm clinic.

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.

Rodica is a Romanian expat living in Belgium who works hard to support her family. Her love for her children is at once powerful and suffocating. Shot in stark black and white, and with the camera staying within close proximity to its protagonists, the film’s minimalist approach offers a glimpse into the complex intimacies of this family. This is a film about love, fear, anxiety and the complicated emotions that emerge at their intersection.

The prompter's wife finally gets pregnant after 12 years of trying. On New Year's Eve, a large, bohemian group of friends celebrates the upcoming baby and the new year.

On the road between Enyed and Felvinc, on the bank of a stream, stand two huge willow trees. They are a historical memory. This memory is recalled in the story, from the time of the Kuruc-Laban war. It shows how the students of the college saved the town.

Pongrácz, an employee of the railway company and participant of the movement called "two thousand tons", is killed in what looks to be an accident. Szabó, his friend, having found the workbook, goes on with the fight.

One day of a Hungarian stock trader.

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.

Two young men meet for casual sexual intercourse. The physical connection is undeniable. A moment changes everything and a decision needs to be made for this to become a real encounter and put an end to a history of emotional isolation.

Filmmaker Gyula Gazdag's fascinating documentary follows Hungarian poet, playwright and activist István Eörsi on a trip to the streets of New York to visit his friend and contemporary, the iconic beat poet Allen Ginsberg. Shot just two years before Ginsberg's death, the film follows the two friends as they share poetry and laughs, wandering the streets of the Lower East Manhattan, musing about the past and contemplating the future.

1991, farewell in Budapest. Mária remembers the past in tears. Her husband, Tibor, a chemist and a target of the KGB, left their apartment one evening to fetch some cigarettes only to be found drowned in the shallow Lake Balaton the following day. Their son, Peter, a student in Western-Europe, was found dead on the Danube embankment.

A tale of a worldwide hanging out. Short film by Geza M. Toth - KEDD Animation Studio - 2009.

Who can sum up the story of Mowgli, raised by wolves, Bagheera, freed from the cage of men, Baloo, a wise teacher of the law, the mysterious Ka, and Shere Khan, thirsty for revenge and human blood? It tells of birth and death, of acceptance and rejection, of team and loneliness, of the magic of childhood and adolescence - of everything that can happen to a "cub", whether raised among wolves or humans.

1920 in a mining town in the country-side. The team of children led by Ferkó Boda fish guns and a flag of Red soldiers out of the local lake.

Early Curtiz feature

Anna and Bálint have a blind date, organized by a scientific service company in the near future. They have to learn, that even Sári, the love expert AI, can not help them to fall in love.

Antal Tőrös, teacher of mathematics, does not like and trust people. No wonder he is not liked by anybody, either. Only his colleague, Klára takes a liking to him. Tőrös is in love with her, and to prove this, he tries to forget about his previous life-philosophy.

The film is a documentary-feature film based on real stories and made with amateur actors. The district pioneer secretary is assigned to find a pioneer who can play a musical instrument, has a working-class background, and studies well at school and appoint him for a one-month-long premium holiday in Britain. He finds a guitarist, Balogh Tibi, in a village school.