Márta Mészáros from Hungary was the first female director in the history of the Berlinale to be awarded a Golden Bear for Best Film. She received the prize in 1975 for her sensitive film about women. In the movie, Katalin Berek plays a single factory worker who would like to have a child with her married lover. She takes in a teenager from a children’s home, which gives the protagonist a chance to experience a “trial run daughter”. The film introduced international audiences to Mészáros.

The 4K digital version is presented by the Hungarian National Film Fund – Film Archive, which restored the film in the Hungarian National Film Fund – Film Lab, using the original camera negative and the original magnetic sound. The digital grading was overseen by the original director of photography Lajos Koltai (HSC, Hungarian Society of Cinematographers).

“I am especially pleased to be presenting Adoption, the magnum opus of one of Europe’s greatest female directors, in immaculate picture and sound quality. Márta Mészáros was a pioneer of auteur films, and her work inspired not least of all many of the German women filmmakers whom we are honouring in this year’s Retrospective”, says Rainer Rother, head of the Retrospective section and artistic director of the Deutsche Kinemathek – Museum für Film und Fernsehen.