email print share on Facebook share on Twitter share on LinkedIn share on reddit pin on Pinterest

FESTIVALS Hungary

Delta and Calmness possibles for line-up at Hungarian Film Week

by 

Romanian actress Maia Morgenstern (Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, Theodoros Angelopoulos’ Ulysses’ Gaze and Lucian Pintilie’s The Oak) will preside the international competition jury at the 39th edition of Hungarian Film Week (January 29-February 5) along with Fipresci Secretary General Klaus Eder and young Hungarian director Krisztina Goda (see news).

The annual event, which showcases before the national and international press the best of Hungarian cinema and its emerging talents, has received 30 feature submissions for the competition and 12 features for the out-of-competition section.

(The article continues below - Commercial information)

The list of 16-18 films that will vie for awards will be unveiled at the end of December and the full festival programme at the beginning of January.

The most eagerly awaited films include Kornél Mundruczó’s Delta [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Kornél Mundruczó
interview: Orsi Tóth
film profile
]
, whose shoot was certainly eventful (see news). Lauded at Locarno in 2002 for his debut feature Pleasant Days [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
and celebrated at Cannes 2004 in the Un Certain Regard section for Johanna [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
, the director has based his latest work on two classic tales: Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Euripides’ Electra, filming the story of a tormented family in the Danube Delta.

Returning for his father’s funeral after being driven away by his mother twenty years earlier, the main character meets his sister for the first time. They fall in love and, upon discovering that their father was murdered by their mother and her lover, decide to avenge his death.

Another film about family tribulations may also appear on the Budapest programme: Calmness, Róbert Alföldi’s debut feature adapted from the eponymous novel by Attila Bartis, a very popular writer in German-speaking countries. Starring Zalán Makranczi, Dorka Gryllus, Dorottya Udvaros and Judit Hernádi, the film examines the power of the complex ties that bind parents and children and the struggle between a mother and her son to find happiness in their troubled relationship between .

While there is speculation that Tamás Almási’s Mario, the Magician (see news) and Szabolcs Tolnai's Hungarian/Serbian co-production Hourglass will also be selected, it appears certain that Hungarian Film Week audiences will get the chance to see the visionary Benedek Fliegauf's Milky Way (see news), which was lauded at the Locarno Film Festival.

(The article continues below - Commercial information)

(Translated from French)

Did you enjoy reading this article? Please subscribe to our newsletter to receive more stories like this directly in your inbox.

Privacy Policy