38th Hungarian Film Week Budapest
30 January – 6 February 2007

Ron Holloway, Berlin, 20 February 2007

Last year, at the 37th Hungarian Film Week in Budapest, visiting critics and festival directors noted the changing of the guard in New Hungarian Cinema. Three young Magyar film directors – Gyorgy Palfi, Hajdu Szabolcs, Agnes Kocsis – springboarded from Budapest over the Berlinale into the outstretched arms of selectors at Cannes. Linked together, they were the talk of the Festival de Cannes – along with Kornel Mundruczo, whose film oratorio Johanna had been well received in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2005 Cannes festival. Gyorgy Palfi is arguably the leader among the new generation of Hungarian filmmakers. His first feature, Hiccups (2002), toured the international festivals and earned him a trip to Sundance. He returned with a treatment for Taxidermia, awarded the top prize at the 2006 Hungarian Film Week and later a hit in the Un Certain Regard at Cannes. As unorthodox as it is perverse, Taxidermia is set in three political time periods – Second World War, communist dictatorship, and neo-capitalist Hungary – as viewed through the weird, absurd, eccentric destinies of a grandfather-father-son relationship. Partly horrorific, occasionally pornographic, completely nutty, the film begs description.

 Hajdu Szabolcs’s White Palms, awarded Best Director at the 2006 Budapest festival and programmed in the Directors Fortnight at Cannes, comes across as a scrutinizing portrayal of methods for training young gymnasts for the Olympics. Drawing on autobiographical experiences and factual material, it questions the pros and cons of subjugating athletically talented teenagers to rigorous training methods that leave scars long into adulthood. Agnes Kocsis’s Fresh Air, awarded the Sandor Simo Prize for Best Debut Feature at Budapest 2006, proved to be a hit in the International Week of the Critics at Cannes as well. The story of a fragile relationship between a mother and daughter, their obsessive rituals in a crowded but tidy apartment eventually drive both to a noblesse oblige sharing of responsibility although they seldom talk to each other.

 The winners at this year’s Hungarian Film Week (30 January to 6 February 2007) marked a return to an accommodating balance between mainstream cinema and arthouse fare. The top awards were split between an auteur film and a genre film. “For the past two festivals we rely on the sound judgment of an international jury of professionals to decide on the key festival winners.” Csaba Bollok’s Iska’s Journey, awarded the auteur prize, is the poignant story of a pre-teenager forced to collect scrap-iron to pay for the drinking habits of her mother and stepfather. The girl’s runaway odyssey ends in the hands of a mafia band that specializes in child kidnapping and trans-border prostitution. Gabor Rohonyi’s comedy Koniec (Russian for “end”), awarded the genre prize, is a rib-tickling Bonnie & Clyde tale for senior citizens. The story features two oldtimers from a rundown highrise who decide that the best way to keep collectors from their door is to go on a robbery spree of their own in a beat-up Chaika, a relic from former chauffeur days for the Party elite.

 Ask the critics, and the best feature entry at Budapest 2007 was Janos Szasz’s Opium - Diary of a Madwoman, awarded Best Director and the Gene Moskowitz (International Critics) Prize, thus a cinch for a slot at the upcoming Cannes film festival. A Faustian tale set is a mental clinic in 1913, Opium is about a morphine-addicted doctor with a writer’s block called upon to treat a young insane woman. She, on the contrary, is addicted to writing daily in her diary, a malady that hints of obsession by an unknown evil power. The mutual reliance between doctor and patient leads first to a sexual frenzy, then to the illusion that the doctor can seal a pact with the evil spirit that apparently possesses the woman’s body, and finally to the morbid decision to remove the brain of the afflicted woman. Although performances by Danish actor Ulrich Thomsen and Kristi Stubo are standouts, this haunting tale of love and death owes much to the subtle images fashioned by Tibor Mathe, Hungary’s premier cinematographer and Szasz’s primary collaborator. Opium - Diary of a Madwoman is based on the writings of Geza Csath (1887-1919), the same author whose erotic tales of love and death had provided the director with his first international hit, The Witman Boys (1997), another psychotic tale set at the turn-of-the-century about two young brothers abandoned by an uncaring mother. Between these two films, Janos Szasz has indulged in his second love: theater. He directed Eugene O’Neill’s Desire Under the Elms for the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge/Massachusetts, and his acclaimed production of Brecht’s The Caucasian Chalk Circle has toured Europe.

 On opening night, the 50th anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian Uprising was recalled when the Organizing Committee respectfully dedicated the 38th Hungarian Film Week to the memory of Zoltan Fabri (1917-1994). A highlight of Fabri’s career was the premiere of his Merry-Go-Round (1956), starring Hungarian film legend Mari Torocsik in her first film role, at the Cannes film festival just a few months before the Budapest Uprising. Film directors Janos Hersko and Istvan Szabo were also honored as Masters of the Hungarian Motion Picture. Szabo, in turn, paid tribute to veteran director Felix Mariassy (1919-1975), his teacher at the Budapest Film Academy. Last year, the 37th Hungarian Film Week had opened with Szabo’s remake of Mariassy’s Relatives (1954), a comedy about corruption in a provincial town.

 No less than a dozen archival documentaries covered the revolution from different angles. In Janos Veszi’s Break on the Air – Hungary 1956 journalists and radio employees recall the events of the revolution. In Attila Kekesi’s The Face of the Revolution – In Search of a Budapest Girl the filmmaker sets out to find out what happened to the girl whose face on the front cover of Paris Match (10 November 1956) symbolized the revolution itself. In Kalman Kecskemeti’s The Tell-Tale Silver Nitrate an album of photos and film footage by amateur filmmakers underscores how dangerous their efforts to record the revolution for posterity really was. In Reka Pigniczky’s Journey Home: A Story From the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 two sisters journey from the United States to Budapest to find out whether their father had actually told the truth about his oft-told but never documented role as a freedom fighter. In Gyula Gulyas’s This Is the Time events of the 1956 revolution are reviewed in amateur photos and montage excerpts that depict familiar personalities of the times. In Boglarka Edvy and Sandor Sillo’s Diary Film, I Was 12 in 1956 the everyday life of a Budapest boy at this time is enlivened by animation segments and documentary footage. In Sandor Novobaczky’s We Were Giants – Miskolc 1956 the lesser known uprising in Hungary’s second largest city is recalled in interviews with former students at the Heavy Industry University.

 For those readers not familiar with the historical events that led up to the Hungarian revolution, Judit Kothy and Judit Topits’s A Fiery Autumn in the Cold War – Hungary in 1956 is highly recommended. This vital summary of the Cold War, with its complex political maneuvering in Central and Eastern Europe following the death of Stalin in 1953, is important in particular for its analysis of the reasons behind the hesitation of Western Powers to come to the aid of the Hungarian revolutionary leaders. Rediscovered film clips from film and television archives in Russia, France, Germany, Great Britain, and the United States make A Fiery Autumn in the Cold War – Hungary in 1956 a moving visual experience. Towards the end of his hour-long documentary, we can feel the despair of a failed revolution in the faces of those left the country as well as the pain of reprisals for those who chose to remain.

 During the festival I made it a point to visit the narrow Corvin Passage in downtown Budapest, where some 2,000 revolutionaries held off Soviet troops for several days and accomplished the extraordinary of destroying 25 enemy tanks. It wasn’t until November 10, nearly a month after the revolution started, that Soviet shelling could crush the resistance in the Corvin Passage. There, you could see a newly erected statue to a young revolutionary posing with a gun. Before the restored Corvin cinema in the passage are also several memorial plaques, some garnished each day with freshly cut flowers.
 
Awards

Feature Films
Main Prize, Best Auteur Film
Iszka utazasa (Iska’s Journey), dir Csaba Bollok
Main Prize, Best Genre Film
Konyev – as utolso czekk a poharban (Konyec), dir Gabor Rohonyi
Special Mention
Lassu tukor (Slow Mirror), dir Igor and Ivan Buharov
Best Director
Janos Szasz, Opium – egy elmebeteg no naploja (Opium – Diary of a Madwoman)
Best Cinematography
Tibor Mathe, Opium – egy elmebeteg no naploja (Opium – Diary of a Madwoman), dir Janos Szasz
Best First Film, Simo Sandor Prize
Boldog uj elet (Happy New Life), dir Arpad Bogdan
Best Production Design
Gyorgy Arvai, Edit Szucs, Janos Breckl, Gabor Medvigy, Zoltan Kamondi, Dolina, dir Zoltan Kamondi
Best Screenplay
Judit Elek, A het nyolcadik napja (The Eighth Day of the Week), dir Judit Elek
Best Actress
Kata Kovacs, Kythera, dir Peter Meszaros
Best Actor
Sandor Zsoter, Toredek (Fragment), dir Gyula Maar
Best Original Music
Membran, Boldog uj elet (Happy New Life), dir Arpad Bogdan
Best Producer
Gabor Sipos, Gabor Rajna (Laokoon Film), Boldog uj elet (Happy New Life), dir Arpad Bogdan
Best Editor, Golden Scissors Prize
Judit Czako, Iszka utazasa (Iska’s Journey), dir Csaba Bollok, and Kythera, dir Peter Meszaros
Best Sound, Golden Microphone Prize
Istvan Sipos, Manuel Laval, Matthias Schwab, Opium – egy elmebeteg no naploja (Opium – Diary of a Madwoman), dir Janos Szasz
Gene Moskowitz (International Critics) Prize
Opium – egy elmebeteg no naploja (Opium – Diary of a Madwoman), dir Janos Szasz
People’s Choice (via Internet)
Konyec – as utolso czekk a poharban (Konyec), dir Gabor Rohonyi

Short and Experimental Films
Best Short Feature Film
Turelem (With a Little Patience), dir Laszlo Nemes Jeles
Special Mention
Vakacio (Summer Holiday), dir Lili Horvath
Director’s Special Prize
Denes Nagy, Egyutt (Together)
Best Cinematography
Mate Toth Widamon, Alterego, dir Ferenc Sebo
Best Experimental Film
Alszent (Hypocritical Saint), dir Nicolaus Myslicki

Documentary Films
Main Prize
Balkan bajnok (Balkan Champion), dir Reka Kincses
Best Director
Edit Koszegi, Escape Into Love
Best Cinematography
Csaba Talan, Elboronalva (Predestinated) dir Barbara Vagi, Csaba Talan
Pal Schiffer Prize
Hazateres: egy szabadsagharcos tortenete (Journey Home: A Story from the Hungarian Revolution of 1956), dir Reka Pigniczky
Special Mentions
Itt az ido (This Is The Time), dir Gyula Gulyas
Miert?! Egy tragikus szerelem tortenete (Why?! The Story Of A Tragic Love Affair), dir Bela Szobolits
A forradalom arca – egy pesti lany nyomaban (The Face of the Revolution – In Search of a Budapest Girl), dir Attila Kekesi
Miss Universe 1929 – Lisl Goldarbeiter – A szepseg utja (Miss Universe 1929 – Lisl Goldarbeiter – A Queen in Wien), dir Peter Forgacs
Equal Opportunities Prize
Elik az eletuket – karpataljai szappanopera (They Live Their Lives – Sub-Carpathian Soap Opera), dir Dezso Zsigmond

Scientific Education Films
Main Prize
Forro osz a hideghaboruban. Magyarorszag 1956-ban (A Fiery Autumn in the Cold War – Hungary In 1956), dir Judit Kothy, Judit Topits
Best Director
Andras Der, A het fobun – Bunok ezek? (The Seven Deadly Sins – Are They Sins?)
Best Subject
Budapesti vadon (Budapest Wild), Zsolt Marcell Toth

Most Successful Hungarian films in Cinema in 2006
Prize of Association of Hungarian Cinema Exhibitors
Szabadság, szerelem (Children of Glory), dir Krisztina Goda
Prize of National Radio and Television Board (ORTT)
Csak szex es mas semmi (Just Sex and Nothing Else), dir Krisztina Goda