Due to the pandemic the 2021 Dublin Film Festival was held online. It took place for 12 days, a fine selection of international and Irish movies were on show, and the winners were released this weekend.

Lili Horváth (Photo: Hanna Csata/ Poste Restante)

The Best Director Award went to Lili Horvát for PREPARATIONS TO BE TOGETHER FOR AN UNKNOWN PERIOD OF TIME. Lili Horvát’s second feature tells the story of Márta, a 40-year-old neurosurgeon who leaves behind her brilliant career in the United States to return to Budapest and  start a new life with the man she loves. When they meet, however, the man claims that he has never seen her before.  

Following its world premiere at Venice Days, PREPARATIONS TO BE TOGETHER FOR AN UNKNOWN PERIOD OF TIME was premiered in North America as one of the few titles selected at 2020 special edition of the Toronto IFF.

Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time (Photo: Poste Restante)

The film also won the Jury Award for Best Narrative Feature at the Philadelphia Film Festival and the FIPRESCI Award at the Warsaw International Film Festival with Horvát winning the Gold Hugo in the New Directors Competition at the Chicago IFF in 2020.  

"Slippery, supple and sinuous, Hungarian director Lili Horvát’s deliciously reworked psychological noir is a spiral staircase, polished to a glossy shine, down which unreliable motivations, self-delusions and romantic obsessions tumble in gorgeous 35mm" – Variety  

PREPARATIONS TO BE TOGETHER FOR AN UNKNOWN PERIOD OF TIME, will have UK release at Curzon Home Cinema on 19 March.