Az apostol

Kalán Imre, the district doctor lives in a small village surrounded by mountains. One day he is visited by two young relatives of his and their friend, a doctor at the beginning of his career. The name of the doctor is Király András, and he happens to be the great love of Kalán's young wife from her unmarried years. The orthodox Stalinist Kalán's entire life is filled with his great passion, hunting. The suffocating, narrow lives of the prominent people in the area are slowly revealed to András.

This Hungarian film chronicles the slow deterioration in the life of Juli, a farmer's wife. As the countryside grows ever more deserted because people are moving to towns or large collective farms, she spends more and more time alone. Despite her best efforts to appreciate her situation, her despair grows. The loneliness is briefly interrupted when she and her husband take in an old woman and care for her, but the woman dies. Shortly after her son visits, she is killed in an accident which may have been a suicide. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

1866. The Habsburg monarchy fight a war against the Italians and the Prussians. General Klapka, who emigrated to England after the fall of the 1848-49 freedom fight of Hungary, exploits the situation and organises a Hungarian legion with the help of the Prussians, then attacking the Austrians in their back sets out to return to Hungary.

1997. Young car mechanic Iván lives in a godforsaken village in eastern Hungary. He looks after his mentally disabled sister Eszter and earns extra money smuggling diesel oil from Ukraine. The siblings' coexistence is disrupted by a tragic event, Eszter is raped. A police investigation gets under way; in the meantime, Iván starts up a relationship with young Ilus, who has just finished school and is planning on going to the university. Iván plainly wants to leave his old life behind him, but will he be able to fulfill this ambition? - Written by Warsaw Film Festival

The "sleepless years" in this propaganda piece by director Felix Marlassy occur on Csepel Island, an island south of Budapest that is home to an armaments factory. The factory workers are shown being exploited by imperialists, capitalists gone berserk, and fascists, more or less in that exact chronological sequence. The heavy-handed approach does much to undercut the belief that when socialism finally takes over, the lives of the workers are brought up to a human level. In this instance, audiences might prefer a more nuanced and subtle statement, no matter what the message.

This easy-to-take Hungarian drama is also known as Two Wishes. The prinicipal characters are a pair of juvenile delinquents, who may still be redeemable. The sullen duo is befriended by a kindly police inspector, who takes it upon himself to straighten out the boys. What follows cannot be termed surprsingly or innovative, though it is immensely satisfying. Of interest is the fact that a Communist-bloc film would admit to a delinquency problem in the so-called Worker's Paradise. Ket Vallomas was the Hungarian entry in the 1957 Cannes Film Festival.

The fate of a Hungarian Jewish family throughout the 20th century.

For old Margaret, who lives alone, unexpected and tragic news bring positive change in her life. Doctors predict that she has only a few months left, but she starts to live again just now.

The events of the story take place in the outskirts of working class people in the early nineteen fifties. Makra, a skilled worker in a factory, suddenly comes to close quarters with everything around him because his environment condemns and ridicules him for protecting a woman when his drunk fellows were going to rape her after his bachelor party.

Over the course of four generations, a family in Hungary confronts poverty, political turmoil and a life that's perpetually on the move.

1958. In the cell of the condemned, seven men await the signs of an approaching execution. All of them recall their pasts and envision their wish-dreams.

A cardiologist is sent into retirement, but he feels at loss without his work. He returns to his home village to work as a general practitioner. This is the start of his ordeal: he's confronted with raw reality, which finally brings him to his knees. But music has the last word.

Set in the 1890s on the Hungarian plains, a group of farm workers go on strike in which they face harsh reprisals and the reality of revolt, oppression, morality and violence.

A murder took place in 1961, a middle-aged man, father of a family, Dávid Sajgó, was found dead in his village gate in the morning. During the police investigation it was established that the murdered man had visited Anna Töre in the village the previous evening, had besieged her with a love proposal and had repeatedly proposed marriage. Anna Töre, who was a good-looking woman, had raised three children alone, by three different fathers, and was considered an eccentric in the community. She was suspected in the death.

Anyegin arrives home in an abandoned castle for his uncle's funeral. He is a misanthropic, tired, cynical man who has seen it all, tried it all and is tired of what others - including his young neighbour, Lensky - consider the meaning of his life. At Lensky's invitation, he visits the Larin's estate, where he meets Tatiana, a young girl under the spell of books and a fan. Tatiana falls in love with Anegin and confesses her feelings in a letter...

In the cruel world of Hungarian folk tales, everything smells of blood and gunpowder. The three sons of a poor man return home to their father after ten years of absence. But the kind-hearted shepherd, the ruthless outlaw and the recently discharged officer have no idea that terrible danger awaits them at the site of their childhood. Their father has made a pact with the devil: in exchange for wealth beyond imagination, he has sold one of their souls to the lord of hell. And the devil always comes to collect...

Death does not select, man does. Set in Budapest, Heavenly Shift offers an eerie insight into the everyday lives of a rather extraordinary ambulance crew. The films main character is Milan, a young refugee from the Balkan War, who joins a team of paramedics but inadvertently ends up involved in the funeral business in order to finance his fiancee s rescue from the hostilities.

András and Juli meet at a desperate moment in their lives, when they have both made a difficult decision, the consequences of which they cannot bear alone. András, a talented but heavily addicted programmer, decides to end his career, while Juli, a budding actress, has left her husband and temporarily her daughter to rethink her life. The two move in together and lock themselves in Andrew's apartment, where he enters his umpteenth detox, while Juli tries to help him with patience and love. In the weeks that follow, they explore the deepest depths of human existence, a hell of fear and humiliation, of physical and mental suffering. The hope of healing can mean new possibilities in the lives of these two men.

Somewhere in a small village in Hungary three public workers dig the same ditch year after year for aid, while they talk about the same day after day. One of them, Béla learns that the TV news showed a former classmate of them, Frike Herner, whose father was the village's policeman when they were children. Béla recalls how at that time a childish conflict between the two of them grew to a great extent. As he remembers more and more details, begins to realize that human destinies repeat themselves from generation to generation and are just as constant as the always-the-same ditch in front of them. Comical and sometimes painfully thought-provoking story through present and past try to find the answers to questions ranging from the individual to the entire world: are we in God's hand, or is God inside us, and can we shape our own destiny? The film is based on the play of the popular Hungarian writer, János Háy.

Ede (Dezso Garas) is in his sixties, and he is full of uncertainty about how he and his wife Kati (Mari Torocsik) will fare in the new post-communist regime in Hungary. At least before, he had some idea what he needed to do to get by, and even if he never made much money with his myriad schemes, they got by. Kati has got a real bug in her ear about their livelihood, and is hounding him to get into the spirit of the new system. This is troubling enough for the old gent, but when he runs into an old mistress (Kati Lazar) and discovers that he has a grown son he has never met or knew about, his life becomes even more confusing. His slimy ex big-shot brother-in-law (Istvan Avar) is a major player in the new entrepeneurial risk-taking, and he beseiges poor Ede with advice as well. In this topical comedy, all these worrisome things, and more, come to a head at a big family celebrtion.

The film, depicting life in the tenement houses of Angyalföld in the thirties joins the neorealist currents of Hungarian film. Ambrus Pista, the good humoured, attractive tram conductor is loved by women for his excellent job as well. With his lover, the street-walker Terus they spy upon the neighbour as he beats his wife in jealousy.

Filmed in commemoration of Hungary's 1100th anniversary and on the sites of the actual events, a cast of thousands authentically recreates the 896 AD arrival of the Magyar chief Arpad (Nero) and his seven tribes into the Carpathian basin from the steppes.

The film takes place the Budapest Amusement Park in 1919, just before and during the proletarian dictatorship. After the outbreak of the proletarian dictatorship, both the former employee who returns from Russian captivity as a communist and the domestic philosopher spreading Marxists ideology regard the nationalisation of the Fun Fair vitally urgent. In this, the daughter of the owner of Orpheum Blau, Ilona, assisting most enthusiastically.

Between 1993 and 1999, one man robbed 29 financial institutions in Budapest. Banks, post offices and even travel agencies fell victim to his crime spree. The police had no leads and no hope of finding him during his six-year stint. The only clue left behind at the crime scenes was the distinct aroma of whiskey. The media christened him the “Whiskey Bandit”. Never physically harming anyone, many began to eagerly follow his escapades through the media. A Transylvanian immigrant, who also happened to be a goalie for one of the city's largest hockey teams, named Attila Ambrus, was finally identified as the “Whiskey Bandit”. The police had finally captured him... or so they thought.

Trumpet player Géza Elekes does not play very well in his private life, and his fourth marriage has failed. One day he gets a call from his father, whom he hasn't spoken to in decades. This prompts her and her son, András, who is in the thick of things, to visit her parents, who live across the border. When he arrives in Transylvania, his father says he is fed up with her jealousy and moves in with him. Géza reluctantly accepts the idea, but eventually the three men set off for Budapest. Along the way, they face many trials and tribulations: hit-and-runs, chases, women, corpses and the green border.

While cleaning offices at night, Zsolt Kovàcs learns a lot about his invisible employers by examining what they leave behind, carefully choosing his targets, often disillusioned women whom he seduces, methodically taking their money. An artist of manipulation, with a generous dose of humor and the ability to assume different personalities, Zsolt begins to work in a psychologist's practice, where he meets Hanna, a 30-year-old dancer who is physically incapacitated and the daughter of a millionaire. The ideal victim if love doesn't get in the way.

The 50 years old Ferenc rents an apartment on the Balaton beach, but it has a lot of debt on it. His plan is to make it profitable.

A cross-section of the relationship between the two great figures of French symbolism, Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine.