Discoveries from Hungary World Cinema

Desiré is forced to play a game of Chess as she is made to run errands to save her family

Uncut news coverage of Viktor Orbán’s 2019 White House visit blares through the televisions of Budapest, where almost 90% of the media is controlled by the Orbán regime. 30 years after the fall of communism, as the Soviet-era architecture is vibrantly refurbished, so is the messaging from the new face of authoritarianism.

a video restitution of a voice recording of a young offender explaining what motivated him to commit a crime

Gábor takes in his seriously ill mother, and when he returns to his mom’s old apartment, he finds a strange photo of his mother. Since he doesn't get answers to his questions from his mother, he starts searching for the picture. The clues lead to Romania, where it turns out that Gábor's mother worked in a Ceausescu orphanage, from which she escaped one day with a baby...

We can gain insight into the life of Anita, who works as a sex worker.

Single by chance?! - this is the title of Fruzsina Ács' solo evening.We asked the comedian what we can expect from the show; Fruzsi first told who the evening was for:Current for singles. It's nostalgic for former singles. And it is preparatory for future singlesugh.The solo evening talks about dating, relationships and, of course, singleness, but, as the comedian says, it also turns out that being single is not always a miserable thing. There are so many bad dates that you choose to be single. Fruzsi talks about her attitude towards having children as a single person, and of course she also talks about the social pressure related to this. We also asked him how he felt about being filmed in public, and how different it is to stand-up with cameras recording his every word and every move.

An emotionally immature teen's summer break.

The film presents an underground punk band that appeared in a small town in Borsod county in the eighties. In the depressing factory town of the forgotten Eastern Hungary, a movement called Privát Nihil started, which resulted in an amazingly high-quality music world. The focus of the film is the frontman of the band, my father, who embodies genius, but he could not enforce it because of his principles, addictions and demons. Gábor Jesse's strong character created a world, a mini-state, where you can take all your traumas and shout them out. But this roar comes at a price.

Rattling, the bus moves through the night. With a style reminiscent of expressionist woodcuts, in daydreamy colours and loving detail, this animated short captures the magic of a chance encounter that brings two people together for a fleeting moment.

A young man in his early twenties living abroad wants to explore his grandfather's past with naive enthusiasm, focusing on his political role in the 1950s. Even from the perspective of so many years later, Péter is still moved by the ideology and purity of the revolution, so he confronts his own grandfather, the former prime minister, with a series of relentless questions about his compromises, servility, and indifferent excuses. A particularly shocking part of the film is when Péter, acting as an intermediary, seeks answers from his grandfather through a tape recording of a victim of the 1956 revolution who fled to Australia.

Sand-animated adaptation of Vivaldi's The Four Seasons.

Hommage to Pulp Fiction ("Ponyvaregény") and Trainspotting made by hungarian amateur filmmakers.

Abdi Hedayat, the conservator of the Natural History Museum of Copenhagen routinely performs public dissections on animals. Scared, excited, nervous and smiling faces of children watch as Abdi cuts, skins and gutls. An antarctic wolf, a python and a sumatran tiger loose their skins and fur. Animals transform from flesh and blood into scientific artifacts in front the eyes of children. We gain insight into a strange and bizarre scientific ritual. The same taboo challenging tradition that made the young giraffe of the Copanhagen Zoo, Marius an infamous media sensation all around the world. I Miss You, Marius, a meditative, optimistic and humanistic film chasing the ghost of a dead giraffe uncovers the relation between the modern human and nature and how we pass that relation to the next generation. Is there any place left for innocence if exposed to the answers of science too early?

Réka, a young veterinarian, visits her brother on his ranch. Áron needs her help to take down one of the horses, but if she helps him their life will never be the same again.

A young man receives a telegram to attend his own execution at dawn. There may have been a mistake, but the office is closed and the truth cannot be found out. The mistake is masterfully mysterious and the sense of civic duty is so high that the candidate willingly puts his neck under the knife.

This depicts the process of reliving a memory - and the disintegration that follows - through a series of associative images.

A boy finally meets a girl he can fall in love with. But the girl is wrong to fall in love with. Especially if you're her next target.

Random Walks is an experimental documentary short film that is based on informal talks with five migrants or immigrants who live in Budapest. It not only focuses on their lives and circumstances but also aims to get in an intimate relation with them.

The aspiring Painter obsessively seeks for the perfect shade. In order to achieve that, he has to make a huge sacrifice.

The dead comes to life in Makucska, and tries to live together with the townspeople, but most people wants the resurrected to remain dead.

The fields of Eastern Hungary were once grazed by large herds of cows. However, the chime of cowbells turned into the sound of funeral bells, as these large herds disappeared from small villages. Bálint Balla, one of the last of the local cow farmers, bid farewell to his herd then made a coffin for himself out of rushes and willow branches.

A testimony of two transgender women about childhood, desires, violence, and perseverance in modern day Hungary.

Digging in Greek mythology, the story focuses on the adventures of Dionysus and Theseus.

The private diary of a couple in a ghostly Budapest before, during and after the Second World War, between poetry and historical re-enactment.

The film commemorates Ignác Török, martyr of Arad. The story of the night before his execution is based on real events and features real characters, but the visit of Ignác Török's former lover and daughter to the prison in Arad is a figment of the author's imagination.

The series created by Swiss Railways. Utifilm about the beauties of Switzerland in winter.

Documentary film about a peasant wedding held on the streets of Arad followed by a theater show in which the bride and groom participate. The film was made on December 14, 1913 in Avram Iancu Square in Arad, as well as at the City Hall and the City Theater.

"This is not a test" is made from bits and pieces of rotten 35 mm film. The stains and marks left by a natural decomposition process resemble the inkblots used in the Rorschach test. While this is not a test, the viewer is invited to engage with the flow of the images and make their associations.

A day in wintertime Budapest. Shot in an avant-garde style, the study extended over the smallest details of everyday life, observing everybody from workers repairing the street to nightclubbing bourgeoisie. A special rarity is the Arizona pub from Nagymező street, featuring a primadonna on a stage equipped with a very special elevator.

Orsi is a single mother, living with her 5-year-old daughter. She’s just found a man on a dating site who she is about to go on a date with. This short film is about a special night of a middle-aged mother.

The film’s main character is Betti Forgó, who was a freedom-loving punk in Budapest in the ’80s. She found her independence in driving a cab, and she’s been doing it ever since. The film presents an interview with animation. Betti tells us her reflections on the last 25-30 years’ events related to cabbing.