The Fifth Seal

The Fifth Seal 1976

8.10

In 1944 Budapest, one of a group of four friends poses a hypothetical moral question to the others, an act that will unexpectedly alter their lives forever.

1976

To See Naples and...

To See Naples and... 1972

1

Szegedi Anna, a lawyer having just arrived back from Naples wants to divorce his husband, also a lawyer, because since a hot night she has only been thinking of Laczkó, the handsome businessman.

1972

Time Stands Still

Time Stands Still 1982

6.50

A Budapest high school in the beginning of the 1960s. Dini suffers the torments of adolescence. His father had to leave Hungary after the uprise in 1956, and since then Dini's mother has had to take care of her two sons on her own. A friend of Dini’s father, Bodor, is released from prison and moves in with them. Dini and his brother are far from happy about this intrusion on their family life.

1982

Twilight

Twilight 1990

7.02

In the dense and murky woodlands of provincial Hungary, the search for a child murderer drags a once-respected detective into an all-consuming obsession enshrouded by irresolution and despair, even long after he has been taken off the case. What emerges is not a crime story, but a harrowing venture through the darkness of the human soul.

1990

Never, Nowhere, To No-One

Never, Nowhere, To No-One 1988

7.50

Vendel Imre is a driver, his wife is expecting a baby, they have two sons. Before 1945 Vendel was a military officer. In 1951 they receive a letter from the Ministry of Interior: they will be transported to a forced domicile, allowed to take 50 kg personal belongings per person with them.

1988

Csutak and the Grey Horse

Csutak and the Grey Horse 1961

1

Csutak is just a pain in the neck, the little boy is even excluded from play by his mates. Vacation is spent lonely until one day he sneaks the woman haulier's old, shabby horse, a creature that would be better off in a slaughterhouse, out with himself. Possessing the animal is the key to the children's gang. They all try to find a place for the horse.

1961

Diary for My Father and My Mother

Diary for My Father and My Mother 1990

6.20

This story follows a young student, who is orphaned as she grows to adulthood in the shadow of the 1956 Hungarian uprising. Coming from the Communist intelligentsia, she sees her friends and family react differently. Her lover, a married factory manager, supports the patriots and later assists fellow workers in staging a strike. Meanwhile her sister and others express anger at being forced from their homes during the revolution and continue to express a hatred for the rebels afterwards. But in the end they realize that for all people, real life is not possible after the revolt and its brutal suppression by the Soviets and their collaborators.

1990

Cantata

Cantata 1963

6.60

A young doctor undergoes a spiritual crisis when he returns to his rural home.

1963

Daughters of Fortune

Daughters of Fortune 1999

4.40

A story of a mother who had to change her profession from a teacher to a high class prostitute to make a living.

1999

25 Fireman's Street

25 Fireman's Street 1973

5.40

On one hot summer night, the residents of a Hungarian apartment house slated for demolition restlessly revisit their haunted pasts as they face an uncertain future. In a gently turning kaleidoscope of dream imagery, regret-laden nostalgia and painstakingly intimate detail, the looming wrecking ball pales in significance to the accumulated experiences each dreamer revisits. Pre-war prejudice, occupying Nazis and Stalinist deprivations all come and go as each tenant’s backward glance yields moments of aching sensuality, infectious exuberance and catastrophic loss.

1973

Abandoned

Abandoned 2001

6.20

Áron is a happy child in his family. But at some point things take a different turn, and his mother starts to lose her health rapidly. As this happens, the man in charge decides what's best for Áron without consulting the young boy's opinion, and the boy finds himself thrown out of his warm home into an orphanage in the woods. He's utterly displeased by what's happening, without knowing he has yet to face much worse...

2001

A Pianino in Mid-Air

A Pianino in Mid-Air 1976

5.00

Kicsi Dániel, the young virtuoso pianist gets a separate apartment in the ten-storey block of flats. He rehearses all the time, irregularly, day and night, disturbing thus the peace of the dwellers in the thin-walled house. Inquisition begins in the name of equal rights for inhabitants.

1976

Tolerance

Tolerance 1986

1

The unskilled, jack-of-all-trades András and his wife, Éva are put in jail for serial work-place thefts, -committed in order to try to ensure a normal living standard for his family - and for aggravated assault committed for self-defence, respectively. Their two small children are put in state care, then given to foster parents. András, still in prison, commits everything to help the released Éva get hold of an apartment and get their children back so that when he will have served his term the family could be together again.

1986

Peter and Paul

Peter and Paul 1978

6.00

The subject-matter of this comedy is age-old: that of the schizophrenic soul. Papa would have liked boy twins years ago, but her wife gave birth to a single child weighing six kilograms. He would like to dampen his feeling of emptiness by having the boy registered both as Péter and Pál.

1978

Potteries

Potteries 1981

6.00

Andras (Zygmunt Malanowicz), an older man employed as a furniture designer, gets a life-jarring shock when he returns from a trip and finds that some of the work he developed has been given over to a younger employee. This instigates a mid-life crisis over his own identity and his sense of security and self-worth, all exacerbated by a recent divorce and estrangement from his son. Recognizing that he needs help, the man goes for therapy and starts to face his problems. Therapy counteracts some of the damage of living, and the man starts to consider his son, his relationships with women, and his father in a different light.

1981

Innocent Assassins

Innocent Assassins 1973

7.50

Two arts students, András and Viktor who are writing their thesis on detective stories, make up a story and keep nagging the famous film-director, who just came back from Hollywood, until he undertakes the job. At night they work on the film, in which two youths kill a director returning from the US. In the morning the director is found dead - a knife in his back.

1973

Tisza: Autumn Sketches

Tisza: Autumn Sketches 1963

1

The first signs of autumn are seen in a landscape along a river. Some villagers are stacking a bed of stone blocks on the river-bank to avoid more eroding. Others are occupied by ploughing, fishing or repairing. A small steamboat passes by. In the engine room a stoker is shovelling coal into the oven. Further down the river a small town is passed by the water. A rowing-team is training for coming races. Some biologists are looking at microbes from the water through a microscope. A group of workers are painting a new barge and push it into the river. When a small boy sees a racing boat, he leaves his sand-castle and runs along the river.

1963