Discoveries from Hungary World Cinema

A young farmer in his thirties lives in deep poverty with his wife and children on a farm far away from the village. The driest summer of his life endangers everything he had built and created.

1983 Cannes Film Festival

Trees are very special creatures. They grow very slowly and hence they live for very long. Simply by existing they provide shelter and food for thousands of other creatures. Trees are so different from other life forms that sometimes they look as if they were out of this world. They spend their time on a different scale. For them, a day is like a moment. A season is like an hour. And a year is like a simple single day. This story is about an oak tree. A giant, which have been standing in the same place for centuries now, still, a lot of interesting things happened to it.

During the peace negotiations after the first world war, the army of the still forming Czechoslovakian state crossed the demarcation line on the river Ipoly, invaded Hungary and captured the city of Balassagyarmat in an attempt to have negotiators’ mind in Paris made up for an expansion of Czechoslovakia’ boundaries. However on 29th January 1919, local citizens and a few military units expelled the occupying Czech forces, earning the “Bravest City” title for Balassagyarmat.

Three strangers appear unexpectedly as the cold early spring night falls on a ranger's lodge. The ranger has to face the eerie situation, while being reminded of his solitude.

A magnetic storm is approaching the solar system and will turn daily life on its head.

A man believes he have witnessed a murder on the Pásztor stairs in Budapest. As he becomes increasingly obsessed with the case, an irresolvable confrontation develops between the man in search of meaning and the meaningless world around him.

Sand animation by Ferenc Cakó to the sound of Carmina Burana.

András, a single father, is having a hard time finding a way to his daughter, as they both struggle to cope with the challenges of their own everyday lives.

A landguard and his son go on patrol in a border area, where an invisible danger looms.

The puppet commercial entitled Incandescent Love was one of the distinctive works from the Coloriton studio. It was made in 1939 for Tungsram, manufacturer of electric light bulbs.

Music video for Flying Saucer Attack's Instrumental 7, directed by Peter Strickland.

Seven stories about love and women.

The protagonist learns that soon she will have to leave her blockhouse flat for good. After receiving the upsetting news she is overwhelmed with emotions. Her teardrop of farewell grows into a concrete monolith. When the drop hits the ground a surreal panorama of the blockhouse area, that she used to call home, unfolds...

During World War I, an ancient feud divides the industrial area in the county of Nógrád. The workers of the steal factory start a strike, but the miners do not support their cause. Sanyi from the steal factory and Ilonka from the mining community fall in love with each other, but can only meet secretly. When the boy dances with the girl in the pub of the miners, he is recognised and knocked down.

Balázs Hajdú's solo evening gives us a peek into the life of the youngest member of the Svetes humor mafia, which is made really exciting and personal by his childhood photos, his diary written as a teenager, and photoshop pictures he took himself. In addition to all this, his performance includes a love test, stand-up comedy and other improvisations. All you have to do is buy your tickets quickly and then get a good night's sleep, because everyone needs a rested brain to receive the right quality of reception. By his own admission, his first solo night was so self-contained that he was alone in the room, but it was so well done that word quickly got out about his excellent atmosphere. After the huge successes of Harry Potter and Twilight, here's I'll say it slowly.

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.

Feri and Karcsi are best friends. They have been fishing and chatting together since they were kids in their tiny village somewhere near the Tisza. One day the harmony is broken: a big catfish and a new postwoman stir their emotions.

Young people going about their daily lives. They are looking for themselves, for each other. At the core of the film is the standing in front of the Toldi: the three main characters, Bodza, Janó and Mari come and go from here.

Could I live anywhere else? Before Hanna moves abroad, she gets lost and rediscovers her Eastern European home country in a twisted journey.

Two young couples gather for a game night. Milla, Zalán, Alíz and Boti have been friends for years, but this night is not without some tension between them. It quickly becomes clear that games are not only played on the board, and stakes are higher than that anyone would have expected…

A documentary on the International Festival of Democratic Youth in Budapest.

A son tries to break the rules set by his father and stand up for himself.

According to Peter Brook, all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged is for a man to walk across an empty space whilst someone else is watching him. Thus, an empty space becomes a bare stage. However, this raises countless questions about the relationship between reality, everyday presence and role-playing, something experimental filmmakers coming from the 1970s world of theatre dealt with in detail. Tibor Hajas explored the topic in a short experimental film made at BBS.

In his so-called one-minute films, he raises the most important questions of today's human life in a caricature-like manner, but with deep humanity.

While studying in Bruxelles, Daryna Mamaisur is caught up in the conflict tearing through her country. She questions the way in which to speak about it, at a distance, while cinema seems the “least appropriate” means.

Children are required to conform to the formalities of rites filling the adult world without questions. Without any explanation, this seems violent and alienating for children whose instincts rebel against the ties.

Dr. Kétzy, judicial council chairman, convicts the three participants of a bank-robbery. Also present is Cecil, who believes her brother to be innocent, and she vows to take revenge on Kétzy.

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.

A unique drama about everyday athletes who join an extreme running race. Their dream and burden is to test their personal limits, heal their souls and release their demons.

Anna lives in a small hungarian village with her alcoholic father. One day he sends her to the post office with his lottery tickets, but along the way she bumps into an old friend.

The protagonist is hit ten times, but fortunately it's only a bruise.

Who and why shot Hungarian and German infants and young children in the head and exterminated entire families near the town of Prerov (Prerau) in Moravia on the night of June 18, 1945? Why did the bodies of the women and children killed here had to be cremated two years after this massacre - after these bodies were disinterred by army units - in the crematorium of the also Moravian city of Olomouc? Why didn't the Czech historian, who investigated the fate of the slaughtered Hungarian and German families and who also fought for the last honors to be paid to them, receive no praise or medal from Budapest? And what was the fate of the 90 Hungarian leventes handed over to the soldiers of the Slovak army by the soldiers of the Soviet army occupying Austria at Ligetfalu below Bratislava? This documentary explores the story of two hitherto unexplored mass murder in Pronov and Bratislava in the village of Bratislava.

Teenager Lena is preparing for her first ever sexual experience. She is overwhelmed by fears and expectations of the family legend of the Wonderpussy. Tonight Lena will find out whether she inherited the ability, which may change the way she sees her lover.

Rise of the Árpáds tells the never-before-told exciting story of the 9th century Hungarian Conquest, and also gives an insight into the rise of the most famous Hungarian royal family, the Árpád dynasty.

The band Platon Karataev was founded in 2016, and the indie-folk songs of their first album exploded on Spotify to such an extent that they even surpassed the listenership of the best-known Hungarian artists. At the gate of international success, they decided to switch from English to Hungarian, from acoustic guitars to a more grandiose, psychedelic soundscape.

Endre and Agha, the newlyweds, had a hard time at first. Agi's parents refused to help them. Then a child was born. Life without an apartment and without sufficient funds became even more difficult. It came to divorce. But love prevailed: Endre and Agi realized that together they would overcome all difficulties.

A real urban legend set in the famous baths of Budapest, but from a new perspective; Giacomo Casanova, a teenage fan girl, and a shy cactus.

The 5th film in Tamás Almási's documentary series about the city of Ózd.im

Rhapsody in Blue Jeans is a stop-motion animation composed to Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, which in a series of smart sequences projects a grotesque image of the all-standardizing universe that is denim. In the film’s dynamic intro, all the accessories in a sewing kit are reshaped to become actors in archetypal Western chase, saloon and gunfight scenes.

Magyarszurdok does not receive a penny from the county budget, and there are rumours that the settlement would like to be merged into neighbouring Tatarszeg. In order to save the town, the director of the local museum invents an Arpad-era hero, the heroic hero Bodony. At first the council president is reluctant to cheat, but for the right reasons his wife persuades him to commit fraud. The town begins to develop, and tourism revenues increase. However, this uninterrupted development is fundamentally threatened by the emergence of a pair of conmen who outwit even the inventors of the valiant Bodony.

Hajnally Ödön, engaged to the wealthy daughter Buday Klári, faces financial ruin as he struggles with debt. Anticipating a substantial dowry from Klári’s affluent family, he reconsiders and ultimately flees, abandoning both the wedding and his obligations. His decision causes scandal, heartbreak, and significant distress for Klári, who is left to navigate the aftermath of his abrupt departure

A documentary by director Tamás Kőszegi and editor-reporter Vera Mérő about the past and present of the Hungarian Two-Tailed Dog Party: a project that started as a friend group of artists and is now aiming for major political laurels. The film, born from material originally intended for a fact-finding article, was preceded by a year of research and dozens of interviews with more than twenty speakers.