Hungary, 1966, Language: Hungarian, Subtitles: English (86’); Screening: 09.06, 18.15, Toldi Cinema, Kisterem

One of the most lyrical films of the Hungarian New Wave, winner of numerous prizes, was made with the affection and intimacy of a Truffaut film. István Szabó’s subjective camera flies on the wings of childlike imagination. In the 1950s, the cinema-crazy boy weaves an entire myth – in the style of the different film genres and newsreels – around his father who was killed at the end of the war. Sometimes he pictures him as heroic partisan, sometimes as the wise leader of the people, sometimes as a famous doctor hiding patients in the hospital. The traumatic period of dictatorship is evoked through the experiences and emotions of the young boy and university student: Auschwitz, 1956, the contradictions of existing socialism. It is the story of the insecurity of a fatherless generation.

Directed by István Szabó
Screenplay by: István Szabó
Director of photography: Sándor Sára
Music by: Gustav Mahler, János Gonda
Cast: Miklós Gábor, András Bálint, Dániel Erdély, Klári Tolnay, Katalin Sólyom, Zsuzsa Ráthonyi
Genre: psychological, historical drama
Production: Mafilm, Studio 3
Format: black and white, 1.37:1, 2K restored

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