A Priceless Day

Frigyes, shortly after immigrating to New York City from Hungary, leaves his family for the pleasures and gratifications of being a street bum. But as time goes by, the appeal of this lifestyle wanes. A series of adventures with other drifters reaches a dramatic conclusion when some thugs murder one of them. This startling event forces Frigyes to come to terms with his current situation and decide whether to return to the family he abandoned.

The slow decay of a marriage sets the stage for this drama, which is leavened with understated humor. In 1988, Jozsi (Gergely Kocsis) is a Hungarian laborer who decides to marry Elizaveta (Eniko Borcsok), a woman of Hungarian descent living in the Ukraine. 1996 finds Joszi and Elizaveta the parents of a young girl, but otherwise their marriage is a shambles; Jozsi has become an alcoholic and Elizaveta has decided she needs to strike out on her own for the sake of her child. Shot on digital video as a project for Hungarian television, Paszport was directed by Peter Gothar, who previously made the international success Megall Az Ido.

A Budapest high school in the beginning of the 1960s. Dinis 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 Dinis' father, Bodor, is released from prison and moves in with them. Dinis and his brother Bodor are far from happy over this intrusion of their family life.

A story about summer days from the life of Hungarian children.

Gizella Weisz is an middle-aged office worker, who gets a promotion one day. Her boss told her that a new outpost is waiting for her. There she would be heading a new section. She travels from place to another and finally arrives at her new outpost. It is a remote shed, where a half-insane co-worker is waiting for her. It is obvious that Weisz has not been promoted, but punished. However Weisz does not realize that herself. Without questioning she just accepts her promotion.

Vászka, the town robber, is off his form. He has no money and Luvnya, his sweetheart, constantly clamors for a trip to Moscow. His problems are solved when he meets Ványka, the village robber. The two robbers enter into an alliance and start working together.

Peter Gothar films give a sharp, uncensored view of the society. This film is no different. The plot is rather simple: a family goes to vacation with the usual stress. Then on the vacation the wife gets a strange kind of sickness and they go back to Budapest for a cure. While the wife is in the hospital, the husband visits his family. This is quite banal. However the scenario was written by Peter Esterhazy, one of the most influential contemporary writers in Hungary. His style uses a lot of surrealism but in a way that profoundly illuminates the reality. In this film, the reality is an atomized society where the so-called communist ideals are nowhere so everyday people are fully disoriented.