Discoveries from Hungary World Cinema

During a dysfunctional family dinner, oppressed family members battl their oppressors. The battle for domination leads to a monstrous outcome.

1989. A decisive year for the destiny of Europe. A regime of more than 40 years suddenly falls apart, borders are redefined. The documentary film No Order! is the similar story of two lieutenant colonels, Bella Árpád and Harald Jäger. Bella Árpád, in violation of his own duties, allowed the East German masses to cross the Hungarian-Austrian border, and Harald Jäger did the same at the Berlin Wall, when he allowed people from East Berlin to cross into the West without using a gun.

An elderly taxi driver is a hopeless romantic and a crude observer of life who has lived through hardship and witnessed despair. The route to the destination leads through the labyrinth of his own memories as he roams the streets.

The film is following the undefined relationship between the two characters, based on autobiographical events and raw dialogues about insecurity, nostalgia. They attempt to explain their thoughts whilst they cook pancakes or take a walk along the river, while being stuck in the feeling of emptiness.

The life of a Romani community from Kászonújfalu through the life of a young woman.

Lilla (@lillak__) and Gergo (@raczgerike2013) are wandering in each other DMs when they finally find intimacy.

An evil genie takes Szindbád's newly earned love interest. With the help of a beautiful slave he goes on the search to find her.

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

There’s only one matchstick left in the box. This matchstick, this ordinary thing is the protagonist of Mitch-Match series. The main character is a blue headed matchstick, that embarks on a journey in every episode and always returns to the box at the end of lots of strange, playful and imaginative adventures. A single matchstick, an easy-to-use object and at the same time opportunity for creative experiences that evoke everyone’s fantasy world.

The life of a group of friends has been shaken by a tragic event. They travel to the countryside together to try and face the situation.

A visual essay which investigates the spaces of images, departing from a photo taken on the beach of Azkorri (Basque Country). Questioning how a change of perspective might alter the sensibility towards an image, the video evolves around positioning a gesture encountered in the movie Még kér a nép (Red Psalm, 1972). The director subsequently encounters this gesture in a photograph of Russian LGBTQIA+ activist Yelena Grigoryeva. She explores that particular symbol by drawing lines to her own queer sexuality, to the aesthetic representation of communism, as well as to questions of dispossession and appropriation.

Lieutenant Gabor's plane drops intelligence officer Benkov behind enemy lines. Benkov is assisted by his sweetheart Marja, also an intelligence officer and partisan, to carry out his mission. The Gábors' next trip also takes them behind enemy lines, to photograph a hidden railway line. They prepare the shots, but are discovered, get into a firefight and have to make an emergency landing. Luckily they reach Marja's hut and Benkov hides them. The partisans discover their hiding place and Marja and Benkov are shot dead. Lieutenant Gabor covers the retreat of his comrades by sacrificing his life, so that the important recordings and Benkov's report reach their destination.

An imaginary poker game turns deadly.

A man goes on a quest to find the spirit of a woman to whom he could never say goodbye.

In the summer of 2011, a few film students and bike lovers decided to make a documentary movie. The original idea came from Levi, a Hungarian film student, who went to Madrid for 5 months to study, and after finishing school there, he decided to go back to Budapest on his fixie bike and asked the people of Europe to join him on his way. The journey started in July, at the European Cycle Messenger Championship, Madrid and ended at the gates of Sziget Festival, Budapest in August. Friends from film schools of Budapest, Madrid and London joined the trip to make a road-movie about the challenges and most of all the fun that Levi and the other riders had on the way to Budapest.

One of the oldest footages of Zagreb, shows the local caffe "Corso".

Ever been to four continents in an hour? Ever been on a Slovenian whitewater rafting trip in the Egyptian desert? Are we Hungarian abroad? Do we travel enough? If so, how? What do we take and what do we leave behind? How does the culture of another people affect us? How does a Thai pensioner live? Many of these questions will be answered, humorously of course, and we can even leave our passports at home.

A documentary crew gains access to the 50th birthday party of László L. gypsy vajda - much, if not all of the Hungarian mafia appears at the party, seemingly without any worry about the camera filming them.

First Hungarian film ever made. Considered lost.

After the name of a recent lottery winner is announced in the newspaper, hundreds of letters are sent to him, asking to borrow or receive some of the money.

A young man takes the bus and his surreal journey begins. During the voyage he is digging deeper and deeper into his suppressed, untold frustrations.

The main character, Eszter Tóth, raped by five Russian soldiers in Transcarpathia in 1944 , gives birth to a baby : the bastard of the devil. The story shows the vibrations of the wounded soul of a woman under the pressure of history.

In 2005, after a four-year hiatus, the Illés ensemble performed twice again. On 5 August, the legendary band gave a free concert in the main square of Csíkszereda in Transylvania. Just two kilometres from the sacred saddle of Csíksomlyó, where hundreds of thousands of people saw the rock opera Stephen the King in a performance that will live on in the memory of the ages. The spatial proximity of the two events is also symbolic for Illés because the opening song of the rock opera - Te ki would you choose - can also be heard on the 1970 album Human Rights (White Album). The live performance of the "Big Band", which lasted more than two hours and was expected to attract around 150,000 people, included the greatest hits and, of course, the band's "community-building" songs. The idea for the concert in Csíkszereda came from the drummer Zoltán Pásztory, who was inspired by the success of the rock opera Stephen the King in Csíksomlyó, but he could not be there.

Avant-garde picturesque vision to the music of Béla Bartók. Motifs of an abandoned farm evoked in haunting tones: a galloping horse, a thatched house, a hoe, crockery...

Ivan Ladislav hides a true chamber of wonders behind the clear, mathematically abstract structure of his films and videos, meticulously compiled rhythmically frame for frame, each work likewise presenting an analysis of the film medium. Concealed therein, culled from deep in the medium’s prehistory, are hermetic parallel universes in whose number ranges and symbolic spaces, Galeta’s precisely constructed film compositions find a formalist anchor.

We're at Hungary's western gateway. The landscape is ruled by the representatives of economy: motorways, cities, industrial parks, wind farms, as well as the hydroelectric power plant commissioned exactly 20 years ago. But something hides among them. A giant alluvial fan with small, island-like villages, forests, wetland fields, reed beds, all of which are encircled by countless small and big watercourses and prongs. This inland delta is unique in Europe, and was created by the Danube coming out of the mountains. But today the river is not as free to move as once. Seeing the grip of the built environment, the question arises: Can the wildlife retain its former richness and beauty?

Dolma is the Tibetan name of Tara, a Buddhist female deity, and means 'she who saves'. Dolma is regarded as a Bodhisattva of compassion and action. She is known as the mother of all buddhas. Our team felt that Dolma relates to the message we would like to convey via our movie and used her name in the documentary title. One of the main legends about her origin as a bodhisattva tells a story of a young princess who lived in a different world millions of years ago. Her name is Jnanachandra.

Daddy Kárász, the stakhanovist worker, complains in a television interview about the fact that his family, consisting of many members, cannot get a home on their own. Kéri, the chairman of the local authority, promises to help him on the condition that if he does not, they may move in to his villa at elegant Pasarét. Nothing happens, therefore the Kárász family takes Kéri by his word. From this time on, tumultuous scenes and frequent quarrels take place in the villa between the two families.

Hungary could have been the happiest barracks under socialism only because, with the involvement of the Colombian drug cartel, it smuggled several tons of drugs into the United States every year. The Hungarian mafia from Los Angeles was also actively involved in the distribution of the drug methaqualone produced in Újpest. Since the psychotropic drug, also known as Quaalude, generated millions of dollars in profit for the comrades on the Danube, Budapest used this amount to feed the population, plug the budget deficit and build hotels. Of course, it didn't take long for the American Drug Enforcement Administration, DEA, to eavesdrop on the action and blackmail the People's Republic of the Carpathian Basin.

In the spirit of Frigyes Karinthy, an amusing pixilation burlesque about the everyday life of a graduating class, starring pantomime actors.

Documentary film.

Sometime not too far in the future a revolution takes place in a certain country. A special dictatorship, the Smokers' Society. The changes of the revolution transform the structures of the society radically. On top of hierarchy stands the Doctor Prime Minister. The main characters live in this country that has its own laws. They have something in common: they do nothing.

How a man feels when he sees a beautiful nude...

How to carry life inside you while surrounded by the threats of death? In blockaded Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh), a pregnant mother carries both hope and fear, as war, hunger, and deprivation threaten the fragile life within her.

A little girl visits a psychologist. But why did she have to go there?

Uncle Leo, the famous inventor, can control the weather thanks to his fantastic invention, the magic barometer. One day, he decides that the weather should be beautiful and summery, then continues to go about his business. At this point, Peter and his faithful dog take control of the device. They continue to cause trouble until the barometer breaks and...

This is the recoding of Hungarian production of the musical Elisabeth from 2004.

The story of the wonderful rabbit slipper.