The Ark of Nino

Love makes a bad relationship between father and son all the more rancorous in this drama from Hungarian director Viktor Oszkar Nagy. A convict (Janos Derzsi) returns home after a long stretch in prison to a less than enthusiastic welcome; his son (Tamas Ravasz), now in his late teens, was left to fend for himself and tend the family farm on his own after his dad went away, and the youngster blames his father for his mother's untimely death. The father wants to mend his relationship with his son, but the young man makes no secret of his contempt for his dad, and only grudgingly allows him back on the farm.

Underrated in light of its current (February 4, 2007) IMDb score of 6.4, this film reminded me of what Joseph Heller's 'Something Happened' could look like if a film was to be made out of it. Our middle-aged character's life is in a fragile balance at the start and soon that balance will, of course, be disturbed. Even without much in the way of drama at first, an at times nightmarish reality intermingles with nightmares, and, typically for a movie from this region, state bureaucracy and the absurdities of a semi-legal order play a role in moving developments along. So what is it that awaits our hero down the informal road he is officially sent? Complete deconstruction? Or the 'unbearable lightness of being'? If you give the movie the time to unfold, it will reward you revealing an entertaining concept by the end.

The heart-wrenching story of The Citizen begins with a citizenship exam, where the examination committee rigorously questions a middle-aged African man. No matter how beautifully he recites Hungarian poetry, Wilson, a political refugee in his late fifties, fails the exams for the umpteenth time, because he doesn’t know where the periodical ‘Magyar Közlöny’ got its name from, and what the Corvinae are. Moreover, inspired by Vörösmarty’s poem, the committee chairman even questions his reasons for leaving his mother country. Wilson argues that his reasons include his fellow citizens cutting pregnant women in half, yet he doesn’t manage to soften the heart of the committee members.

Day in and day out, lovers Cynthia and Evelyn enact an elaborate sadomasochistic fantasy as mistress and maid. But as their ritual of domination and submission begins to turn stale, Cynthia yearns for something more conventional, while Evelyn tries to push their taboos even further.

13 year old Lili fights to protect her dog Hagen, and is devastated when her father sets Hagen free on the streets. Still innocently believing love can conquer any difficulty, Lili sets out to save her dog. Failing in his desperate efforts to find his beloved owner, Hagen joins a canine revolt leading a revolution against their human abusers.

It is Dr. Borlai's job to tell the patients that they just have a few days left. But one day his colleauge tells him this story. So the sample husband the best father and doctor comes up with a devilish plan. To ruin every relationship that he is in so the loved ones will let him go easily. And when he achieves this he is still alive but he should be in the cemetery long ago.

In a world where childbirth is state-regulated, a couple applies for a license to have a child. They pass the first round of the process, but have no idea what awaits them in the second round.

An album film for Bongor’s award-winning EXTÁZIS, following the artist’s struggle with addiction. Blending fictional and documentary elements, this genre-defining work is driven by the album’s songs.

Rita, an ordinary, but lonely woman is kidnapped. Her captors are the Árpáds; they claim she is not called Rita but Szilvi, a runaway from their family. Rita eventually understands that the only way out is in - to escape she must impersonate Szilvi. The more she becomes the lost girl the more she finds out about the family - and understands that her life is on the line.

It’s summer in Budapest, high school student Abel is struggling to focus on his final exams, whilst coming to the realisation that he is hopelessly in love with his best friend Janka. The studious Janka has her own unrequited love with married history teacher Jakab—who had a previous confrontation with Abel’s conservative father. The tensions of a polarised society come unexpectedly to the surface when Abel’s history graduation exam turns into a national scandal.

Piroska is an overweight, alienated nurse who can’t resist cream-filled pastries. She works in the terminal ward of a hospital; her life is surrounded by death. One day she sets off to find her long-lost childhood friend. While tracing her recollections, she embarks on a paradox-filled voyage within her own memory and the memory of those she encounters.

The rigid Ildikó is in the thick of menopause while attending an accountancy training at a spa hotel, when a hearing-impaired woman unexpectedly triggers her to rediscover her long-suppressed desire for physical intimacy.

Some wounds never heal. In a rundown Central European town, the everyday lives of three working people are violently disrupted: a boy goes missing, a woman is stalked, and a man comes face to face with the killer of his child.

33-years old Tamás Merthner is heartbroken, after his girlfriend Anna, who is on a scholarship in Paris, breaks up with him. While wallowing in self-pity, Tamás takes a trip down memory lane to figure out if love only exists when it's practically gone. As he's trying to pick up the pieces, he begins to realize what makes this current society so confused, which gives us a highly subjective view of Hungary's present.

A story of a handball team of teenage girls and their misogynistic coach.

The true story of an unlikely romance in a Soviet labor camp.

András and Péter are two young men trying to make it big with their rock band in Budapest in the early 1980s. When the opportunity arises to attend the wedding of András's cousin in Transylvania, they decide to take it as a chance to raise some money. Once there, they embark on an unexpected adventure.

In the 1970s, a British sound technician is brought to Italy to work on the sound effects for a gruesome horror film. His nightmarish task slowly takes over his psyche, driving him to confront his own past.

The uplifting story of an unusual friendship between an elderly man trying to get out of a nursing home and an impulsive teenage girl on social work who decides to help him.

Set in 19th century Vienna, Ignac Semmelweis, a short-tempered but passionate doctor, delivers babies and carries out autopsies on a daily basis while looking for the cause of puerperal fever, the mysterious epidemic that decimates patients in the hospital.

Miklós Fenyö's parents returned to Communist Hungary in the mid sixties - when everyone else was fleeing to the West. Miki's old friends don't know what to make of his outrageous clothes, flawless American accent and collection of original Buddy Holly 45s. His childhood sweetheart is cold and distant while local tough guy Röné is unmoved by the challenger to his rock 'n' roll crown. But that's not all. When the authorities see the effect Miki's gyrating hips and lewd music have on teenage girls, they won't stand for it. His father's job is on the line, and, for the first time, Miki must play by the rules. He has no choice but to enter the local talent show...

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

Patika unexpectedly invites her former university classmates to her newly inherited apartment for a get-together for apparently no reason, after eight years without contact. As a good host, Patika prepares dinner, and thanks to the old campus heart-throb Honda, there’s plenty of wine. Once everyone has arrived—including Vica, now a turbo-charged mother of two, and Nóra, a successful artist freshly returned from abroad—it becomes clear that their host does have a pressing reason for gathering them. A very pressing one.

A disowned son of a Greek aristocrat arrives in Hungary in 1949 over his family’s communist beliefs and starts work in the Lágymányos tobacco factory, where he falls for Gizi Weiss and fathers their first child in 1953. Fifty years later, the now-destitute “Ratkó baby” is whisked from the Baross Square underpass to Crete by a legion of lawyers to claim his share of a legendary inheritance.

A film about two 10-year-old boys who try to save the world and their friendship.

Liza is a naïve, lonely 30-year-old nurse who wants to fall in love. Her only company is a long-dead Japanese pop star, who turns her into a fox-fairy out of jealousy. Now, every man who desires Liza shall die horribly. Can she overcome the curse?

An old woman flies past six floors after jumping from the roof of her apartment block. Six stories on the poor state of humanity, told with humour and rare imagination to the accompaniment of a pulsating soundtrack from Amon Tobin. A woeful burlesque set in the present by one of Europe’s most original contemporary filmmakers.

Sacra Corona is a historical feature film released to commemorate the millennium of the state's founding. The story deals with the 11th-century throne struggles of the House of Árpád.

An ambitious chef opens a restaurant on a remote estate where she battles kitchen chaos, crushing self doubts… and a haunting presence who threatens to sabotage her at every turn.

A young, revolutionary couple aboard the last train leaving Budapest after the Russian invasion of 1956. Based on a novel by the Austrian writer Stefan Zweig.

The courageous young midwife Christine makes a pact with the devil to save her village from the brutal terror of the Teutonic Knights. Punished by a spider plague, Christine goes from savior to hunted.

A group of international students explores a basement that has been abandoned for years. But what starts off as an exploratory séance ends in bloody mayhem when a malicious entity is summoned.

What makes a boy a man? A film about childhood, family and growing up.

November 1664. The autumnal peace of the Kursanec forest is suddenly shattered by the noise of a hunting party. The leader of the hunters is Miklós Zrínyi, one of the most powerful men in the country. Neither he nor the members of the merry party can imagine how the day will end. The film presents a tragic event in Hungarian history, which is still not fully understood and which will later affect the fate of the whole country. Hunting accident or assassination? There are many theories and explanations, rumours and anecdotes about the events of this autumn day. Is it plausible that the life of a renowned general, an excellent hunter and a respected poet should come to such a fatal end? Who was he whose terrible fate was facilitated even by such potentates as Louis XIV, the Sun King?

A man believes he have witnessed a murder on the Pásztor stairs in Budapest. As he becomes increasingly obsessed with the case, an irresolvable confrontation develops between the man in search of meaning and the meaningless world around him.