István Avar

Hungarian Folktales

Mesemondó

Hungarian Folktales is a Hungarian animated series. Each episode is based on a Hungarian folk tale. The creators paid special attention to using Hungarian folk motives in the episodes.

Whoops

Jenõ

Ede (Dezso Garas) is in his sixties, and he is full of uncertainty about how he and his wife Kati (Mari Torocsik) will fare in the new post-communist regime in Hungary. At least before, he had some idea what he needed to do to get by, and even if he never made much money with his myriad schemes, they got by. Kati has got a real bug in her ear about their livelihood, and is hounding him to get into the spirit of the new system. This is troubling enough for the old gent, but when he runs into an old mistress (Kati Lazar) and discovers that he has a grown son he has never met or knew about, his life becomes even more confusing. His slimy ex big-shot brother-in-law (Istvan Avar) is a major player in the new entrepeneurial risk-taking, and he beseiges poor Ede with advice as well. In this topical comedy, all these worrisome things, and more, come to a head at a big family celebrtion.

Red-Letter Days

Gyula

Mihály, a retired foundryman has brought up his sons in a very disciplined and strict way, and as a result they have become a doctor, an engineer, and a teacher. However, his half orphan grandson, Misi, has been spoilt, and become skilled in nothing else really but riding his motorbike and going to parties. He has been involved in shady businesses a number of times already. Having experienced so many difficulties, privation and hardship in his own life and now seeing Misi's irresponsible lifestyle, the old man's bitterness is growing day by day.

Őrjárat az égen

Kocsis

No description available

A falu jegyzője

Macskaházy ügyvéd

No description available

The Black City

Hungarian mini-series.

Dialogue

The film depicts the period between 1945-60 through the life of a communist couple. Barna Judit, just released from a concentration camp and Horváth László, with an illegal past are brought together by the communist movement. They study and make plans together in the hope of a future that will make sense. The marriage they just entered, however, gets ruined soon by the events of history.

Forbidden Ground

Ügyész

The dramatically dense film takes place in workers' surrounding in the sixties. It raises the newspaper article serving as the basis for the short story to be a model: in a plastic factory fire breaks out causing enormous damages.

Sleepless Years

Tutó

The "sleepless years" in this propaganda piece by director Felix Marlassy occur on Csepel Island, an island south of Budapest that is home to an armaments factory. The factory workers are shown being exploited by imperialists, capitalists gone berserk, and fascists, more or less in that exact chronological sequence. The heavy-handed approach does much to undercut the belief that when socialism finally takes over, the lives of the workers are brought up to a human level. In this instance, audiences might prefer a more nuanced and subtle statement, no matter what the message.

The Round-Up

Vallató I

After the failure of the Kossuth's revolution of 1848, people suspected of supporting the revolution are sent to prison camps. Years later, partisans led by outlaw Sándor Rózsa still run rampant. Although the authorities do not know the identities of the partisans, they round up suspects and try to root them out by any means necessary.

Hi, Junior!

Szemetes

Everyone loves little Junior, but nobody has time for him. So Junior decides to find Time with the help of his friends - dwarves.

Those Who Wear Glasses

Tibor

The young Valkó wants to plan a block of apartments that will still be modern fifty years from now. His ambitious plans are continuously rejected by his manipulative and careless superiors. So instead of the modern block of flats he only plans a bachelor apartment.

Wengler & Sons

Dr. Conrad Abel

A story spanning three generations, from 1871 to 1945. When Gustav Wengler, a farmer’s son, returns from the Franco-German war in 1871, he goes to work for a precision mechanics and optical company, where he soon becomes a master craftsman. Wengler loyally promises the owner on his deathbed that his sons and grandsons will also stand by the company.

Blow-Ball

A day in the solitary life of Pista, a single child of divorced parents. The boy skips school and explores the city of Budapest by himself, yet can't escape an unbearable ennui. Like Mészáros's ADOPTION, this early short film explores the themes of broken family bonds; it also offers insight into the origins of the director’s career.

Törékeny boldogság

Enyedi Zsolt

No description available

Princ, a katona

Végvári ezredes (9 epizód)

No description available

Mocorgó

Schreier

Mocorgó, the well-meaning worker boy, is a tough guy. In his 40s he is still a mechanic's apprentice, but he is disappointed by his family, women and friends, and becomes a criminal. He goes to prison several times and tells the story of his life to the writer, who follows his story until 1956, until Mocorgó's death.

Labyrinth

The film director starts shooting his film about the manager of a large corporation who committed suicide for mysterious reasons. As the cumbersome process of making a film goes along, everybody involved in it starts having differing opinions of the tragedy, its causes and its victim.

Agnus Dei

Kerekes

Allegory of the suppression of the 1919 revolution and the advent of fascism in Hungary; in the countryside, a unit of the revolutionary army spares the life of father Vargha, a fanatical priest. He comes back and leads massacres. A new force, represented by Feher, apparently avenges the people, but only to impose a different, more refined and effective kind of repression.

Two Stories from the Recent Past

Károly Makk strings together two novellas by Tibor Déry. A téglafal mögött is set in the early 1950s. Comrade Bódi, an embittered party worker, reports his fellow workers who are stealing ‘the assets of the people’ from the factory. During the subsequent public investigation, one of them commits suicide. The camera of Makk tells the story of the period through the crumpled face of Jozef Króner, the blank, hopeless stare of Mari Törőcsik and images of a decaying factory site. In Philemon és Baucis, like in Szerelem, the subject of ageing is tied to the traumas of the 1950s. History turns the idyllic private life of an elderly couple (Elma Bulla and Antal Páger) upside down. The 1956 uprising sweeps an injured fighter their way. The old man helps as best he can while his wife desperately tries to save her husband…