Discoveries from Hungary World Cinema

When two students try to make a movie, they accidentally discover the ancient slopness monster. In desperate times they need the help of a real hero, a suli hero.

25 years after leaving, queer Romani photographer Béla Váradi returns to his rural Hungarian home. In spite of deep self-doubt and external resistance, he organises an exhibition of his work, an act akin to an intervention in a country where Béla's identity is subject to state repression.

A woman relives a childhood memory, but it is disrupted. In a parallel world, an ecosystem dies.

Camilla comes from a well-to-do provincial family. She turns down her country suitors because of their lack of culture and her urban suitors because of their immorality. Finally she falls in love with a poor young artist who is painting her portrait on commission of her father. The chances of their marrying appear slim because of the painter’s modest situation but still they get engaged in secret.

This is not a spaghetti western... this is a paprika western from Hungary!

An anti-war film about the impact of war on a small community, based on the novel Love Land by Laura Iancu.

An inspector from the office arrives at the small restaurant. The waitress and the chef are trying to figure out the inspector's strange behavior. Based on the short story Kitchen Secret by Ádám Bodor.

Oryna, an 18-year-old Ukrainian girl, fled her homeland during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, while all her family, including her 7-year-old sister Ksiusha, decided to remain there. The film observes the daily remote communication between Oryna and her younger sister, and reveals their close bonds of sisterhood, which remain strong despite their separation, the constant presence of the war, and the natural process of growing apart.

"Everybody has their special someone out there and I will eventually find the one for me" says "Tick Tock" Pete, known and liked by all the locals in his small town of Solymár just outside of the Hungarian capital but considered a special case by most. He takes lonesome daily trips to his favorite spots: having tea at the pub, tending to the horses he adores and the church on main square. Some would say a lonely outcast but he's never bored; if anyone's clock needs fixing, be that a cuckoo or pendulum, they all can but rely on the person whose the most capable in this field: Tick Tock Pete. The only issue is each time he fixes a clock, he'll use parts from another, rendering it useless, a pawn. Something is always missing - no different with our Pete. Is time truly on the clockmaster's side, ever-turning, never-ending? Tick Tock.

Erno Fisch, the film's protagonist, was born in 1903 in Sighet, the same small town as his world-famous compatriot, Elie Wiesel. Erno Fisch was the only Jew in his town that survived the Holocaust. He escaped deportation by hiding in the forest for six months. From his memories, we find out about everyday life in the area, which later became a part of Romania. Erno Fisch lived in an era when being Jewish did not mean being different, and when he could go to a Catholic school, just because it was closer. His life-story exemplifies the fact that resignation is not the only answer to the challenges of life and history.

A group of Roma teenagers rehearse a stage-play for a talent show, hoping that it can be an escape from their harsh environment. They might not succeed, but will surely learn a lesson about friendship and camaraderie.

This essay-film is a historical crash-course which spans the millennia from the stone age to the conquest of space in the 1960s.

A little girl has an adventure with water as she travels from a small brook to the sea. A tale of growing up based on a Hungarian poem.

"Good evening... I'd like to report a murder... Where do I live? In the basement... but I'm not there now... I'm on the top floor, in the boss's room... Ah, I don't know who the body is... You like to know, I'm the cleaning lady... How can I check if he's just taking a nap? Maybe, but he's got a dagger sticking out of his back the size of half my arm... So I lock all the doors... don't touch anything... keep my mouth shut and don't tell anyone until you arrive..." - Mrs. Piper, the cleaning lady, begins the eerily cheerful, twisty story with her broken sentences, but at the end we are left with no answer as to why Mrs. Pipper talks so much.

How can we get rid of our debts in the quickest, but not entirely painless way? If one is celibate, the good old tried and tested recipe is already a given. Marry a rich lady. The girl in question, Edit Zsámbéki, is already available, but there are still a few snags. Our hero, Dr. Géza Gerleszegi Gerle, the supervisor of the Beneficial Ladies' Orphanage in Buda, has a girlfriend, a dancer named Piri Leleményi, who causes such a scandal when she is abandoned that the country and the world will forget her.

In his new solo show, Gergely Litkai will talk about life in the corporate world, including the question of how much society needs the average writer. Following Multiland, he shared some of the tips and tricks he used to survive working from home. The basic premise of Multiland is the utter uselessness of many members of society and how we try to cover it up with all the tools at our disposal. The pandemic period spent at home, within the four walls, has both questioned and hidden the usefulness of many of us - with cameras switched off during video conferences, meetings 'sneaking away'. When we send endless emails or listen to corporate anthems, we do nothing but add meaning to our otherwise pointless lives. This process is made easier by Gergely Litkai with some tips for corporate life and the home office.

This film examines the relationship between the 1950's movie gimmicks and the contemporary blockbusters through the synesthesia of the classical abstract cinema.

If there are still some blank spots in Zoltán Kőhalmi's life, or if you think you know everything, or if you have simply longed to see a formative performance of him, here it is! This is an evening to get to know the well-known comedian as intimately as you get to know a big-name tabloid actor. Through compromising footage and hidden memories, Zoltán himself gives a guided tour of the museum of his life. It's safe to say that the show is unique of its kind, as nothing like it has ever been done before. This revealing self-confession offers an all-round artistic experience, making a visit to any other cultural event superfluous. This ambitious performance will include action, excitement, animal trapping (not sure), life advice and everything you need to know about 8 Bocskai Street. Laughter and revealing information for the whole family!

The Hungarian economy has been stagnant for years. In the film, we explore how we got here after the country's catch-up seemed like a success story in the second half of the 2010s. A large part of society benefited from the processes at that time, and the improving standard of living also laid the foundation for the support of the Fidesz government. However, after 2022, all of this came to an end in one fell swoop, which politics attributes 100 percent to external circumstances, such as war. The reality is completely different, and the reasons that have now slowed growth to near zero have been working in the background throughout the years that seemed successful on the surface. We show why the promised flight of aircraft is missed year after year.

During an important job, Geri realizes he left one of the tool they need. Her colleague distracts their boss while Geri does everything he can to get the tool back.

A guy wakes up hungover only to realize that he now has superpowers, what follows is the shenanigans that occur while he discovers his powers.

A funny Short film about an overworked student and his quest to overcome his grubling stomach.

Gavrilo lives the everyday life of a seemingly ordinary young man, but he also reads history books and dreams of carrying out a real revolutionary deed. He identifies with his imaginary role, choosing his name from history after the assassin of Franz Ferdinand. Majka lives in seclusion in a greenhouse, preferring to stay as close as possible to her tropical plants and songbirds. She knits clothes, which she occasionally transports by bicycle to a charity in the city. One day, he accidentally learns that some of the donations are being sold abroad by the leaders for big money. In desperation, he decides to punish the culprits. Then he meets Gavrilo and the two lonely rebels join forces to carry out their plan.

Within the walls of a public bathroom, László (Steve Hajdu) encourages his young colleague (Márton Kerekes) to overcome his fears.

A documentary film about the transformation of an exile community nearly twenty years after the end of the Cold War. This film is about growing up in an exile community in the West, developing a double-identity, and becoming a hyphenated-somebody. It’s about learning to have two homelands at the same time - one in real life, and the other imagined and maintained by parents who were forced to flee. It is about a first generation of children whose parents lived abroad longer than they originally expected to, and who never really assimilated. The story is told through an unlikely, albeit dramatic reunion – one which involves a Hungarian rock opera performed in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California by a cast of 40-something Hungarian-Americans. The original cast, including the film's director, meet in the exact same spot they performed Stephen, the king 25 years ago, as Hungarian scouts during summer camp in 1984.

2016 Ig Nobel prize winner György Kriska and his colleagues decide to prevent a massacre: applying their latest results in hardcore biophysics and a bit of tinkering they do their best to ensure the reproduction of the Danube mayflies, who are trapped and killed by the floodlit bridges over the river.

Orphan boy runs away from foster home, ends up being adopted by gypsies. For the rest of his life, he vacillates between mainstream Hungarian culture and tribal gypsy society.

Rest ritual was developed as part of the Revisioning Fitness research project which aimed to crip, queer, and thicken discourse around fitness. This short film examines how I would revision fitness- as a dream space, a utopia. The footage was recorded during my research about collective rest at the Spatial Sound Institute in Budapest, Hungary, recorded in the Szechenyi Thermal Baths.

New documentary by Julianna Ugrin and Márton Vízkelety about Robi, a Roman Catholic priest who leads a parish in a small Hungarian border village and is also a father of three. He has to choose between his job and his secret and strictly forbidden family.

A character finds an egg and tries to save it.

When two young students go down on a spiral to insanity, they discover the meaning of life

Márió, Luigi, and Mr. Joker finish each other’s sentences in a ruined inner courtyard shaded by tree of heaven. They rap, gesticulate, and dance, while the girls and little siblings watch them. Beatbox or freestyle: it makes no difference, they are cool in every style. They record it, edit it, and then do it all over again—they do it themselves; the computer is right there in the corner of the room. In the afternoon, they register their tracks at Artisjus.

A ragged homeless man going through the trash looking for something worthwhile and dreaming of change finds a magic flying carpet, on which he sets off. The tramp becomes the hero of an exciting journey in which space and time intertwine.

An inner landscape in constant motion, where traces of the world around us summon the passage of time. Here, collective memory dissolves into personal nostalgia; places and moments drift beyond their concrete form, surrendering to a fluid, emotional logic.

A little boy, bored with building a bed, seeks something more exciting. A mischievous fire creature lures him away, and despite his father’s attempts to keep order, the boy follows his new friend into a magical mushroom world where anything is possible.

Two friends embark on a digital detox, but even unplugged, hidden truths come to light. What begins as a quiet retreat, soon turns into tension and unexpected discoveries.

Nawras, a Jordanian-Palestinian queer artist, has been living in Bratislava, Slovakia, for the past four years. Existing within two communities and clashing cultures, she is pushed towards a third goal; to find peace and a place she can call home. Can she reclaim the culture she was born into, this time, as she chooses to define it, and in doing so, create a community which will become her family?

Within the dark walls of a dictatorial regime, on the morning of his execution, a chef sentenced to death engages in conversation with the executioner. Through their fate, the film presents the conflict between power, morality and conscience.