16-02-2024

FNE at Berlinale 2024: Hungarian Cinema in Berlin

By NFI HU

    Visit us @ MGB #173 - visit our website for full line-up

    INTERNATIONAL SALES:
    feature films, animations:
    Klaudia Androsovits - International sales executive This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

    BONUS TRIP

    cop action/comedy

    English language

    It depicts the adventures of Marshall and Demetrius, two very different and unpopular agents at the FBI’s intellectual property division sent far away from the office to keep themselves busy working on a petty copyright case in Eastern Europe. While chasing illegal downloaders, our heroes find themselves in a global conspiracy involving programmed homeless assassins. They team up with their translator, Maya and despite having no permission to look into the bigger case, they assign themselves to save the world. Or at least Maya’s kidnapped father.

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    NOW OR NEVER

    history adventure

    budget: 7 million EUR

    This sweeping historical epic follows Sándor Petőfi, a firebrand young poet whose 'National Song' ignites the Hungarian Revolution against the ruthless Austrian Empire on March 15, 1848. As Petőfi bravely carries the torch of the uprising, the Austrians send a devious and formidable secret agent, the Hungarian turncoat Farkas, to stop him at any cost. Their conflict escalates into a dangerous game of wits and cunning, leading to a final confrontation that will decide the country's fate for generations.

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    ALL ABOUT THE LEVKOVICHES

    drama / 85 min

    The generous but stubborn boxing coach, Tamás gets along well with everyone but his own son. They have not spoken since the boy, Iván moved to Israel and became religious in an orthodox community. When Tamás' beloved wife, Zsuzsa dies unexpectedly, Tamás agrees with his son that he can come and sit the Shiva in his house as long as he brings his grandson, Ariel with him. As past conflicts resurface, they embark on an unexpected journey of self-reflection and reconciliation. Father and son are not just obliged to face their old grievances during the one-week religious mourning but to help Ariel deal with his own grief and his obsession that grandma's spirit is still in the house.

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    SEMMELWEIS

    drama biography / 124 min

    1947, Vienna. Ignác Semmelweis, the short-tempered but passionate Hungarian doctor delivers babies and carries out autopsies on a daily basis whilst looking for the cause of puerperal fever, the mysterious epidemic that decimates patients in the hospital. His boss prohibits him from conducting research into the subject and sends his right-hand man to cross him at every turn. He also threatens a young midwife, Emma Hoffmann, to spy on him. After a rocky start, the relationship between Semmelweis and Emma develops into a romance. When Semmelweis's friend gets wounded mid-autopsy and dies with the same symptoms as the women in labour, Semmelweis discovers the cause and prevention of childbed fever. Half of his peers discredit him, yet he carries on with the fight to prove his theory at all cost.

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    SOME BIRDS

    drama / 90 min

    Some Birds revolves around Béla, who feels like the world is conspiring against him when his son places him in a nursing home. Here, they cross paths with a rebellious teenager Zoé, who has been sentenced to community service. While Zoé desperately tries to connect with her single mother, Béla wants to prove to everyone that he can live independently so that he can go home. Despite the almost sixty-year gap between them, their similarities and loneliness turn them into allies. Some Birds tells the tale of a friendship transcending age barriers, and sheds light on the underrepresented social issue of how we process aging.

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    WITHOUT AIR

    drama, 104 min

    In a small Hungarian town, Ana Bauch (Ágnes Krasznahorkai) is a dedicated and liberal-minded literature teacher within the public system. Beloved by her students for her unorthodox and creative approach, she assigns Agnieszka Holland’s 1995  Total Eclipse, depicting the relationship between 19th-century French poets Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine, so they can better understand Rimbaud’s poetry. When a conservative father interrupts his son Victor (Soma Sándor) during the screening and hears of the assignment, he reports Ana to the school’s principal (Tünde Skovrán). Ana is accused of misconduct and spreading homosexual propaganda, and when the local media get wind of the brewing scandal, she faces even more scrutiny. In a system within which many have given up, Ana must decide to fight or to flee — perhaps to a restaurant job abroad.

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    MASTERGAME

    psycho thriller / 90 min

    In this free adaptation of Stefan Zweig’s ’ The Royal Game’, a young rebel couple is escaping from the Russian tanks in Budapest in 1956. They manage to board on one of the last refugee trains. Meanwhile a young catholic priest is imprisoned and tortured by the communists in order to deliver information about a large parcel of Vatican treasures. On this train these story lines are crossing during an exciting chess game, and it turns out that almost nobody and nothing is what it seems to be.

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