Discoveries from Hungary World Cinema

The main character is a young girl who sees the world around her as cold, depraved and ugly. She can’t and won’t fit in. One day, a strange cloud appears over her apartment, triggering a supernatural event.

A teenage girl from the countryside has to grow up quickly when an innocent game goes wrong.

The 4th part of Tamás Almási's documentary series about the city of Ózd.

The daughter of the farmer András Balogh, Juli, is confused by the sight of a circus, she leaves her native village secretly and enters into an engagement with the dance master at a night club in the capital. Her seducer tortures her with dancing drills even during the night, what is more, he beats her. She escapes from her tormentor one night and enters into engagement in Russia. Juli becomes Juliette, and soon we can see her again on the Tashkent property of a prince, where she lives in luxury. In the meantime, war breaks out. Prisoners are brought into the castle. Juli discovers her own father among them, but he does not forgive her for bringing shame on him. One day, as the exchanged prisoners set off for their homeland in the morning fog, Juliette dresses up in the old clothes of Juli, braids her hair and leaves everything, riches and love behind, to return to the land, which her soul became a prisoner of in the very moment she was born .

A group of children are spending their summer in the newly built district which doesn't have any attractions...

A pretty mixed society get together in a camping area. They enjoy their vacation and do not know that two of the vacationists are demolition experts, who are looking for a huge bomb which may explode in any minute. Written by Tamas Patrovics

A giddy and irresponsible actor falls in love with a young ER doctor.

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.

The forest. A mysterious and rich ecosystem where all species - animals, plants and fungi - are interconnected. Where alpine honghorn beetles and legless lizards forage for food and mates in the undergrowth. In the cool streams, stone crayfish and alpine newts live their daily lives. And all this is watched from the canopy by flycatchers, finches and majestic birds of prey like the goshawk. But Hungary's forests are no longer pristine. Only 2% are older than 120 years - and it would take even longer for them to reach a wild state. Today, forests are fragmented by roads and residential areas, and entire habitats are disappearing or become uninhabitable as a result of deforestation. We will explore the complex relationships that define these communities, and travel back in time to uncover the wild past of the Hungarian mountains. These are the lost forests of Hungary.

The story is set in a fictional ancient civilization where the practice of human sacrifices to gain the favor of the gods is widespread. The ritual takes place at the top of a massive pyramid, with a large hole in the center into which the chosen ones are thrown at the climax of the ceremony.

Three short stories dealing with the problem of refugees.

Central-Europe — The future—uncertain, but already lost. A seer who burns visions of the past and future onto photographic paper. A job that should never be taken.

“I need a dog!" says Gabi, the main character in the film, to her parents. Every child has either a dog or a brother or sister! Well, if not a brother or sister, then a dog. I mean, a stray dog. "Who" can be rescued, taken into "shared care", looked after, fed, played with. But what happens when it turns out that the "common dog" - which a group of children have banded together to feed and care for - has a legal owner? And she is an old lady, whose only companion in her loneliness is this dog.

One day, Dorka, one of the main characters in the fairy tale, goes to the market with her aunt. They buy a big chicken for the soup. The aunt sees a long-coveted white feather duster, but the vendor refuses to sell it, so the feisty aunt snatches it out of his hand and shoves it away. The spell that has kept the market peaceful is broken, and the ancient war between kofas, butchers and fishermen rages once more. Neither Minorka Vidor, a doctor of philosophy disguised as a hen, nor Emilia, a neurotic fairy godmother, can restore order until Auntie waves her feather broom again.

One morning two men set off walking along the tram lines. They have no destination, but this could well mark the beginning of a new journey.

Set in the 1970s, this drama is about a seamstress named Éva who undergoes an abortion. She comes to notice that her hands are constantly blackened, even though she washes them. (Her guilt is projected onto herself.) Eve will do anything to remove the dirt from her hands, but finally, she gets into a washing machine and washes herself, transporting herself to another world where she must face her guilt and finally be able to forgive herself.

The old foot-soldier and his son, the Hussar.

When Grandma leaves a bowl of dough alone in the pantry, strange things begin to happen.

The devil arrives in Budapest because he has got wind that a hermit scientist has discovered the elixir of eternal life. Soon the lives of oh-so-some upstanding citizens living in the peace of the peaceful little people are in turmoil. Irén Psota, Zoltán Bezerédy and the unforgettable Buczella brothers.

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.

Józsi is sitting on his bed, watching TV. His grandmother is wrapping a gift in the kitchen and coughing. It is just the two of them. On the screen a star is dying and Józsi turns up the volume. He turned eighteen today.

As a newly diagnosed diabetic, Luca spends her first days in the hospital when she unexpectedly receives a new roommate, Noémi, who opens her eyes on the possibilities of her individual freedom.

The residents of Dunapataj discuss the major historical events of the 20th century and talk about how history has affected their local lives.

Judit Ember returns to follow the life of Nóra Szabó, the heroine of her documentary film 𝘛𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘰̈𝘳𝘵𝘦́𝘯𝘦𝘵 ("Instructive Story", 1975). The troubled young woman who formerly attempted to commit suicide by jumping off a fourth floor is now an unmarried and pregnant mother with two children. Her own mother also brought up her children in similar circumstances, in a closed community without men. But Jenő, the unflaggingly energetic labourer and father of Nóra’s third, as yet unborn child, brings change into their lives.

Summertime. No school. A young boy is left alone with all the duties of a grown-up while his friends are out playing.

In the mid-1980s, a young rural woman gave birth to a child with physical and intellectual disabilities. She fought persistently for her family's happiness alongside her abusive husband, but her efforts were doomed to fail. More than thirty years have passed since then; the girl has become a woman, yet she has been unable to process her experiences. This is why she started a blog, which quickly gained hundreds of thousands of readers. Éva Péterfy-Novák's story is about moving forward after loss and the process of acceptance in an era and environment where admitting mistakes and living with differences were unwelcome.

Vigilant inspectors find 1001 rolls of dubious age in the cellar of a popular Italian restaurant. Based on a short story by Béla Abody.

The absolutely desperate Thomas having lost his love of life starts to envy his brother Abel all the care and attention given to Abel at the funeral of their deceased sister which Thomas has longed for in all his life. He feels an outcast in the community forged together by mourning and it incites him to extreme deeds. The film is an adaptation of the Bible story, Cain and Abel.

A man of Atlantis breaks into the world of light-creatures and starts to kill them.

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.

Joe Selfridge's stage partner Olga dies. Before her death, Joe entrusts his sister Vera, who lives in Warsaw and bears a striking resemblance to his sister, to Joe. Joe takes her into his production, a thrilling world number. During their performance in Budapest, Vera meets Baron Vajk at the hotel, who once loved Olga and now thinks he has found his lost love in Vera. But what will become of Joe without Vera?

Ádám and his friend Bálint, are teenagers living on the violent outskirts of Budapest. When a friend of theirs gets beaten up and they decide to get revenge, Adam is forced to face the fact what it really means to be a man.

Short stop motion animation by Nadja Andrasev and Milán Kopasz

Hour by hour the ancient face of repeated / Beings changes, and hour by hour, / Thinking, we get older. / Everything passes, unknown, and the knower / Who remains knows he knows not. / But nothing, Aware or unaware, returns. / Equals, therefore, of what isn’t our equal, / Let us preserve, in the heat we remember, / The flame of the spent hour. Ricardo Reis (Fernando Pessoa)

It sometimes happens that you do not have to part with your hometown to find bliss and fame. Mostly a fictional life story of a Hungarian legend Vilmos Zsolnay.

Dani is worried whether he has watched enough films at the festival to impress the girl he’s dating. Meanwhile, Peti can hardly pay attention, preoccupied with his own relationship struggles. Left alone with his dilemma, will Dani find enough courage for the next date?

A day in a life of a woman who is busy taking care of her obese dog. Her lovely show of affection towards the animal is interrupted by the arrival of her partner, who, in need of the attention of the woman, affects the cosy atmospere of the house.

A girl who fancies herself a detective solves a cold case while listening to a podcast.

"The cult figure of the Budapest night felt he had reached rock bottom and needed to make a change. But how? Is it possible to create sober? Is it possible to play music clean and have a glass of soda backstage? Last year Balázs Pándi toured festivals as the drummer of Beton.Hofi, playing with jazz bands and now DJing regularly in clubs until dawn. What are the stages of quitting? When are you most at risk of relapse? How does mind alteration affect therapy? How can you stay sober when you should be partying? What to do with nightmares, shame or cravings?" 444.hu (Kiss Bence, Kovács Bendegúz, Czinkóczi Sándor) https://444.hu/2024/03/10/pandi-balazs-portrefilm-meg-senkinek-sem-omlott-ossze-az-elete-attol-hogy-leallt

A nervous painter-to-be has to overcome his own demons during the university entrance exam, which appear as pests in his imagined inner garden.

Documentary about the life and work of the Hungarian composer, Gyorgy Kurtag