Ádám Szirtes
In the small village of Rátót, every male is called Béla. When a woman gives birth to her child, she names him Józsi...
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.
From the intrigues and slander of the branch the painter Hódosi moves out to a hamlet at Hortobágy. He gets into conflict situation as well as he cannot endure that the political and economic elite of the neigbourhood would devastate the nature conservation area with hunting and (tax evading) goose husbandry.
Political and sexual repression in Hungary, just after the revolution of 1956. In 1958, the body of Eva Szalanczky, a political journalist, is discovered near the border. Her friend Livia is in hospital with a broken neck; Livia's husband, Donci, is under arrest. In a flashback to the year before, we see what leads up to the tragedy. Eva gets a job as a writer. She meets Livia and is attracted to her. Livia feels much the same, but as a married woman, has doubts and hesitations. In their work, they (and Eva in particular) bang up against the limits of telling political truths; in private, they confront the limits of living out sexual and emotional truth.
Lt. Kojak arrives in Budapest as a guest speaker for the 'International Crime Writers Conference'. Soon after he starts enjoying the pleasures that the city has to offer, he assists his old friends at the police department with a case. The case involves solving the murder of a noted scientist, unaware that a Mafia hit man and his female companion are targeting him.
An adult educator arrives in the small-town factory with loads of books, energy and a freshly received diploma. The honest young man with dreamy eyes humanises the life of the plant, in a way distributing himself among people.
The loving couple of this grotesque parable parody of the Kádár-regime, Mária and István row to an uninhabited, idyllic island. Soon crazy tent-pitchers swarm to the island, led by an official representative of the regime.
The poor little Ferkó is trying to enrich his miserable life with imaginary fairy tale figures and superstitious little stories. He suffers from diphtheria, and while he is having a visionary dream, Cinkekirály (Titmouse King) saves him from the claws of the magic Küsmödi. He expects his magic jacket to enable him to know everything at school without having studied.
This film shows us around a factory in the seventies in Hungary. In the outskirts factory of Kőbánya workers celebrate the foundation members and want to present the oldest member, Uncle Benda, now a pensioner, with a golden ring. His grandson, Karcsi Merkovics, an industrial apprentice, is in love with the foreman's daughter.
The protagonist of this farce is the enthusiastic, bald, spectacled Krebsz, an employee at the Prime and Sample Institute. He alerts the whole village to organise a beauty contest in the weed-field of Balatonszutykos. Hoping to win the grand prize, the leading role in a two-hour colour-film, the girls make all efforts and use all their tricks.
The 16th century Kecskemét troubled by both the Kurutses and the Labancs would like a Bey from the Buda pasha to defend them in exchange for four beautiful girls, but only gets a caftan. It was a good deal, however. All Muslims fall on their knees when they see the magic caftan and fulfil its owner's wish.
Andras Kovacs' film, considered one of the most important Hungarian films of the 1960s, centers around four men who await trial for their involvement in the massacre of several thousand Jewish and Serbian people of Novi Sad in 1942. Each denies any responsibility, claiming that they were only following orders. The film is significant for its willingness to address the subject of Hungary's role in WWII, which was taboo at the time of the its release.
A comedy about two twin brothers - Sándor, who emigrated and became a rich man, and Zoltán, who stayed in Hungary and lives the life of an average working-class man. When Sándor visits his twin brother, they are constantly mistaken for each other, and when Zoltán sees how differently people treat Sándor because of his money and his foreign citizenship, he begins to like being mistaken for him - until he realizes that this means he will lose his girlfriend Szöszi...
A young woman leaves a state orphanage to find her mother in this interesting examination of how the overt repression of women in the older pattern of village life has been replaced by the more subtle exploitation inherent in the apparently freer existence of young girls in the contemporary city.
Mrs. Holló reports the case of three missing persons to the police. During the investigations, the captain realises that there is nothing to deter Mrs. Holló from her trying to overcome loneliness.
The family travels to Zebegény for their holiday, and the following day the seventeen-year-old Vera also leaves for Lake Balaton to pick peaches in a voluntary camp there. Her boyfriend, Gyuri, goes to a film shooting. Gyuri would like to make the best of the day in the absence of parents, but Vera refuses him. She becomes jealous at once, however, when she discovers Gyuri's previous girlfriend in the shooting team.
For the first time after 11 years, Simon, a young historian visits the village of his childhood at Balaton and Aunt Lina, his foster-mother. He gets upset by what he experiences there: the old woman's troublesome and vexing everydays, her quiet sadness. He is overwhelmed by his own memories, the death of his foster-father and by everything he was not aware of before, or he simply wanted to forget.
The triumphant adventures of the Hungarian baron Münchausen are recounted in the form of a musical.
Joseph II, the enlightened Austro-Hungarian emperor, entrusts his loyal and confidential subject, Ráby Mátyás, formerly a treasurer, to examine the abuses made by the magistrates of Szentendre and Izbég. Following his old friend, Dacsó Marci's directions, Ráby reveals horrible robberies, tax evasions, frauds, and other illegal acts having been committed against the people.
A past world is revived in the little cottage in the outskirts, next to the housing blocks under construction. Tamburás, the old hobo collects swerved youth: Diák, who desires freedom, the bus driver who is deprived of his license for having run over someone, and the rest. They have got an easy and unbound life there, with constant music, small thefts, occasional labour, tricks.
Bene, tired of the professional battles of engineers and trying to escape a ship-wrecked marriage, asks to be transferred to the country. The gravest problem of the sandy region in Nagyalföld (Great Hungarian Plain) is the shortage of water. The tireless director of the local state farm asks for Bene's support, but the disillusioned man refuses him.
A comedy about the organisation of agricultural co-operatives. In the village of "Rendes", everybody has already entered the co-op, only the stubborn farmer, Bódog Balogh continues to resist. The leadership plays all their tricks and uses all their efforts, but all in vain.
On the crowded train, the workers entertain each other by telling stories.
Merry soldiers arrive in the sleepy Transdanubian town. The cynical woman-hunter, Ferdinándy, learns to know doctor Barlay's beautiful wife at a carnival. She lives a happy married life, and the attentions of the lieutenant are all in vain.
On the eve of World War II, Major Benedek Zoltán is an embodiment of the service regulations in the army. He only discloses his feelings towards Anna, his brother's widow. An investigation is conducted in the regiment to identify Communists.
Csepel, 1945. The Csűrös family, in addition to their three children, give accommodation to the orphaned Jóska, although they themselves struggle with difficult circumstances. The boy lends a helping hand in the factory during the days.
Panni, coming from a landless family of ten and Miska have loved each other for a long time. The pretty Panni, however, has another suitor as well: Komáromi, the big farmer. The two men fight from time to time, but then, during the time Miska is serving his military duty, Panni marries Komáromi to end the tremendous squalor of her family.
In a rural scenery in the throes of difficult changes lives a humble but promising young farmer girl called Mari Pataki. Her father forbids her from seeing the man she loves. The father, above all preoccupied by work on the fields and prospective wealth, decides to give his daughter in marriage to an old but rich man with whom he does business. Land marries land, he says. This seems to be the unyielding rule of the Hungarian peasantry. But the young lover is ready to stand up to any challenge to keep Maris love.
Varsa engineer receives the Kossuth award for his excellent work. His career once began at the family enterprise of his wife, so the woman invites her relatives for a dinner party.
Imre, secretary of the illegal communist party arrives in Budapest secretly in 1942, in order to start the newspaper of the party in the fight against war. Not even his own mother can see him.
The top management of the co-operative in the rural community at Lake Balaton goes on coaches everywhere to irritate Mrs. Peczöli, the snobbish wife of the only individual farmer. Peczöli would readily join the co-operative, should it not oppose his apple improving experiments.
György Dandin, the rich bourgeois concludes a marriage contract with the noblemen Lükeházy couple who has turned poor: he can marry their daughter in return of a regular financial contribution. Angyalka escapes the undesired husband at their very first night, and furthermore she establishes a secret romantic relationship with Count Klitander who suits her a lot better.
Judge Csanádi András makes a confession to his boss one night: he fell in love with the pretty, modern driver woman, Zenthe Judit in a fencing room. The girl suddenly returned his feelings. One night she confessed to him crying: she hit someone. The case was assigned to Csanádi, who wanted to investigate the circumstances meticulously despite his feelings. Thus the so far hidden life of Judit, which is bound to the past former world and its values is now highlighted. He is confused, asks his boss to absolve him from the assignment, but refuses to do so. Csanádi realises in the court room: Judit kept on telling lies, she played the lover for her own interest. The judge passed his crisis, he will deliver a fair sentence.
March 15, 1848; the revolution breaks out in the town of Pest. Yet at café Pilvax, in among he revolutionary youth, there is the informer of the imperial court as well. Hearing the news of the attack led by Jellasics, the inhabitants of the villages pour into the national army, and Hajdú Gyurka also escapes from his landlord. Petőfi is there at the camp of the revolutionaries, raising them to enthusiasm with his poetry.
Jóska has become a Communist in the Csillag prison in Szeged. In the meantime, Gábor successfully talks people in Jóska's native village out of joining the German-led Hungarian army.
Kis Katalin and Varga Jóska are getting married. During their honeymoon they are preparing plans for the future. Katalin, however, seems to lag behind both in her studies and the work competition, becoming a couch potato version of a wife. Jóska, instead of trying to help, does nothing else than his work.
A female worker in Socialist Hungary gains the acceptance of her male colleagues.
In 1905 Hungary, a young village woman has just undergone a marriage to the spoiled son of a man to whom her father is indebted, in order that the debt be cancelled, only to be spirited away by her true love, a young peasant, by whom she soon becomes pregnant. Together they attempt to find a way to buy up her father's debt and also pay for a divorce from her husband, against various odds.
