1945

Ferenc Török / Hungary 2017 / 91'
Shown in DISCOVERIES
10 Aug, 18:45 filmmakers q&a
11 Aug, 15:45 filmmakers q&a

A black-and-white portrait of a small Hungarian town near the end of the war. Like in Paweł Pawlikowski's Ida or Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon, dark memories of tragic events have a way of not allowing themselves to be forgotten. Just as the village is preparing for the wedding of the son of a well-known local official, István Szentes, two mysterious Jews arrive at the station with wooden boxes. The residents are afraid they have come to take away their ancestors' possessions. The situation quickly gets out of control. The disturbance brings to light accusations and remorse that have lain dormant for years in this hermetic community. The screenplay for Ferenc Török's film was based on the short story Homecoming by Hungarian writer Gábor T. Szántó. Elemér Ragályi's raw, precisely framed cinematography produces an evocative atmosphere in the picturesque settlement. 1945 is a claustrophobic look at the moral degeneration of a traumatized society and a universal metaphor that contains references to films from the Hungarian New Wave about settling accounts.

Cast & Crew
director: Ferenc Török
screenplay: Gábor T. Szántó, Ferenc Török
story editor: Krisztina Esztergályos
cinematography: Elemér Ragályi
editing: Béla Barsi
music: Tibor Szemzö
cast: Péter Rudolf, Bence Tasnádi, Tamás Szabó Kimmel
producer: Iván Angelusz, Péter Reich, Ferenc Török
production: Katapult Film
sales: Hungarian FIlm Institute
awards: Berlin IFF 2017 - Panorama Audience Award
language:Hungarian, Russian
colouration: b&w

Jupiter's Moon

Kornél Mundruczó / Hungary, Germany 2017 / 123’
Shown in MASTERS
07 Aug, 21:45 
10 Aug, 15:45 filmmakers q&a
11 Aug 12:45 filmmakers q&a

Not every Muslim is a terrorist, but every terrorist is a Muslim-Kornél Mundruczó tears apart and mercilessly mocks this idiotic and unfounded stereotype in Jupiter's Moon, in which a refugee from Homs turns out to be an angel. Documentary photographs from refugee camps in Hungary are mixed with chase scenes that would not be out of place in The Fast and the Furious. It is filmed as if the laws of physics did not apply (in one scene, the camera literally falls out a window), with an engaging story that is critical of the current reality. It takes on smugglers who make their fortune on the backs of refugees, as well as naive people whose faith in miracles is so great that it allows them to take a levitating Arab as a messenger from God. On top of this, there is Dr. Stern, the other protagonist of the story, a man burdened with a dark past who also gets rich. Mundruczó proves that, you can make a Hollywood-style film on a Hungarian budget and still be a filmmaker engaged in the immigration crisis. 

Cast & Crew
Director: Kornél Mundruczó
screenplay: Kornél Mundruczó, Kata Wéber
cinematography: Marcell Rév
editing: Dávid Jancsó
music: Jed Kurzel
cast: Merab Ninidze, Zsombor Jéger, György Cserhalmi, Mónika Balsai, Ákos Birkás, Péter Haumann
producer: Viola Fügen, Michel Merkt, Viktória Petrányi, Michael Weber
production: KNM, Match Factory Productions, Proton Cinema, Pyramide Films, ZDF/Arte
Polish distributor: Gutek Film
language: Hungarian
colouration: colour

On Body and Soul 

Ildikó Enyedi / Hungary 2017 / 116’
Shown in SEASON
06 Aug, 10:15
12 Aug, 10:15

Ildikó Enyedi's triumphant return to world cinema. On Body and Soul is a peculiar sort of love story set in the least romantic place in the world, a Hungarian slaughterhouse, an odd location where two outsiders find work: a lost soul named Endre and the mysterious, withdrawn Marika. Although they are somewhat wary of each other during the day, they are amazed to discover that they meet in the world of dreams every night. In OnBody and Soul, Enyedi manages to strike a perfect balance between surreal fantasy and the universality of the emotions portrayed on-screen. The Hungarian director is also able to show the feelings developing between the two extremely sensitive characters with humor and subdued lyricism. The film's poetic aura adds to Enyedi's characteristic attention to detail. After seeing OnBody and Soul, it will be difficult to get Laura Marling's song What He Wrote-illustrating one of the film's key scenes-out of your head.

Cast & Crew
director: Ildikó Enyedi
screenplay: Ildikó Enyedi
cinematography: Máté Herbai
editing: Károly Szalai
music: Adam Balazs
cast: Géza Morcsányi, Alexandra Borbély, Zoltán Schneider
producer: Ernö Mesterházy, András Muhi, Mónika Mécsi
production: Inforg-M&M Film Kft.
Polish distributor: Aurora Films
awards: Berlin International Film Festival 2017 – Golden Bear, FIPRESCI Prize, Prize of Ecumenical Jury
language: Hungarian
colouration: colour

Hey Deer!

Örs Bárczy / Hungary 2015 / 7’
Shown in KIDS FILMS
13 Aug, 10:00

Deer likes his daily rituals: he removes the snow from around his house every day, and following a hard day’s work, he sits in his rocking chair and drinks some hot cocoa. How is it that everything is such a mess again the very next day? Was there an avalanche or a snowstorm? If he just sticks his nose outside, will he discover what really happened?

Cast & Crew
director: Örs Bárczy
screenplay: Örs Bárczy
music: Bertalan Szűcs
sound: Péter Terner
animation: Enikő Kivés, Beáta Ujj, Örs Bárczy, Hajnalka Tóth, László Nagy, Zsuzsanna Rádóczy, János Tikovits
production: BKF Animation BA
sales: Örs Bárczy
awards: Best Animaton Winner, Manchester Film Festival 2016, Best Children Animation Winner, Umbria Film Festival 2016, Best Children Animation Winner, London International Animation Festial 2017, Best Children Animation Winner, Animation Block 2016
language: no dialogue
colouration: colour

Journey on the Plain

Béla Tarr / Hungary 1995 / 35’
Shown in FRED KELEMEN: RETROSPECTIVE
08 Aug, 10:00
12 Aug, 10:00

An unhurried journey through the Hungarian wilderness—and in color, which is certainly surprising for Tarr. On a scorching hot summer's day, composer Mihály Vig—a frequent collaborator of the director’s—plays the role of a lone wanderer reciting sorrowful verses by 19th-century poet Sándor Petőfi. Vig, like the characters in Satantango, traverses the endless steppe, visits roadside pubs and seeks shade in abandoned, crumbling buildings. Invariably with melancholy words on his sun-parched lips.

Cast & Crew
director: Béla Tarr
screenplay: Sándor Petöfi (poems)
cinematography: Fred Kelemen
cast: Mihály Vig
production: Balázs Béla Stúdió
sales: MTVA
language: Hungarian
colouration: colour

Béla Tarr: Journey on the Plain

Kalyi - Age of Darkness 

Fred Kelemen / Germany, Hungary 1993 / 73’
Shown in FRED KELEMEN: RETROSPECTIVE
05 Aug, 13:00
08 Aug, 16:00

An expressionist cinematic poem based on Walter Rheiner's short story Miramée. An apocalyptic vision of a world ruled by suffering, death, and a lack of hope that forces people to be constantly on the run. Kelemen calls on ominous scenes of wartime-walls filled with bullet holes, rusting steel structures, vehicles engulfed in flames, and above all cattle cars-treating them like small vignettes in which fragments of a macabre play are performed. One night in the pouring rain, a woman in trouble staggers along a deserted street. A man rescues her, putting her in a car traveling through the city. Their spotlit faces and parts of their bodies emerge from the dark blue shade, while depressingly symbolic scenes can be seen through the window. Kelemen's camera moves slowly, smoothly, portentously indifferent, while the soundtrack attacks the audience with tapping and rasping, echoes of pre-war melodies.They end up at a bombed-out hotel that is more like a labyrinth. Trying to survive, the two are together, get lost and then find each other again.

Cast & Crew
director: Fred Kelemen
screenplay: Fred Kelemen
cinematography: Fred Kelemen
editing: Fred Kelemen
music: Paul Browse
cast: Lucien Molotov, Valéria Zsoldas
sales: Deutsche Kinemathek
language: German, English
colouration: colour

Fred Kelemen: Kalyi - Age of Darkness 

The Man From London 

Béla Tarr / Hungary, Germany, France 2007 / 132’
Shown in FRED KELEMEN: RETROSPECTIVE
08 Aug, 10:00
12 Aug, 10:00

Maloin leads a simple life without prospects at the edge of the infinite sea; he barely notices the world around him, has already accepted the slow and inevitable deterioration of life around him and his all but complete loneliness. When he becomes a witness to a murder, his life takes a sudden turn. He comes face to face with issues of morality, sin, punishment, the line between innocence and complicity in a crime, and this state of scepsis leads him to the ontological question of the meaning and worth of existence. The film is about desire, man's indestructible longing for a life of freedom and happiness, about illusions never to be realised - about things that give all of us energy to continue living, to go to sleep and get up day after day. (IFF Cannes 2007)

If I have to say why I like and was drawn to this story, the direct answer is that it deals with the eternal and the everyday at one and the same time. It deals with the cosmic and the realistic, the divine and the human, and to my mind, contains the totality of nature and man, just as it contains their pettiness. (Béla Tarr)

Cast & Crew
Director: Béla Tarr
screenplay: Béla Tarr, László Krasznahorkai (based on Georges Simenon's novel)
cinematography: Fred Kelemen
editing: Ágnes Hranitzky
music: Mihály Vig
cast: Miroslav Krobot, Tilda Swinton, Erika Bók
producer: Humbert Balsan, Christoph Hahnheiser, Gábor Téni, Paul Saadoun, Joachim von Vietinghoff
production: TT Filmmûhely, 13 Productions, Cinema Soleil
sales: Magyar Filmunio
language: French, English
colouration: b&w

The Turin Horse 

Béla Tarr / Hungary, France, Germany, Switzerland, USA 2011 / 146’
Shown in FRED KELEMEN: RETROSPECTIVE
06 Aug, 10:00
13 Aug, 10:00

According to Béla Tarr’s announcement in Berlin in 2011, this is to be his last film. The Turin Horse is a stunning vision of a world falling apart among a complete breakdown of relationships and values. Tarr’s entire body of work seems to be condensed within the 146 carefully paced minutes of this hypnotic chronicle of six days in the life of an old man and his daughter, in which Tarr patiently observes a bleak world awaiting disaster. But this film is not about events or plot twists punctuating the stoic vision. At the core of Tarr’s ultimate opus is the atmosphere that flows form his measured camera work and equally sophisticated attention to sound. In only 30 black and white takes, the director delivers an entrancingly solemn vision.

Cast & Crew
director: Béla Tarr
screenplay: László Krasznahorkai, Béla Tarr
cinematography: Fred Kelemen
editing” Ágnes Hranitzky
music: Mihály Vig
cast: János Derzsi, Erika Bók, Mihály Kormos
producer: Gábor Téni, Martin Hagemann, Juliette Lepoutre, Marie-Pierre Macia, Ruth Waldburger
production: TT Filmmûhely, Vega Film, Zero Fiction Film, Movie Partners In Motion Film, Werc Werk Works, Fonds Eurimages du Conseil de l'Europe, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, Motion Picture Public Foundation of Hungary
Polish distributor: Stowarzyszenie Nowe Horyzonty
awards: Berlin IFF 2011 – Jury Grand Prix, FIPRESCI Prize; Brothers Manaki IFF 2011 – Golden Camera 300 (Fred Kelemen); Palm Springs IFF 2012 - Best Foreign Language Film
language: Hungarian, German
colouration: b&w