Through the cooperation of the Palace of Arts and the Hungarian National Digital Archive and Film Institute (MaNDA), this new series will present the finest works of legendary Hungarian film directors. The first half of the year sees digital screenings of a selection of ten films from the life’s oeuvre of Zoltán Fábri. Although the three-time Kossuth Prize-winner Zoltán Fábri occupied pride of place in the display case of Socialist cultural policy, his work as a film director (1952-1983) was de...fined by the banning of his screenplays, so that he conveyed his humanist message about the world, dictatorship and human relationships in a series of literary adaptations that reached an audience of millions. Although he was essentially not an innovator in terms of the language of film, few directors would have as many powerful sequences in a hypothetical reel of the great symbolic moments in modern Hungarian film – from the dramatic merry-go-round scene in Körhinta (1955) to the vacant building site in A Pál utcai fiúk (1968), and from the expressive stadium in Hannibál tanár úr (1956) to Zoltán Latinovits’s major absurdly packing boxes in Isten hozta, őrnagy úr (1969). Published in 1963, Ferenc Sánta’s novel was the first real Hungarian bestseller, and a shared topic of conversation under the solidifying Kádár dictatorship. The story is a reckoning and representative summary of twenty years in the life of a village. In 1945, four former farm labourers enter the system of communist land reform together. Jóska becomes president of a farmers’ cooperative, while Varga becomes a party secretary and agent of state security who almost shoots his one-time friend Anti Balogh in the 1950s. In 1956, Anti shoots at Jóska, while after 1956 Varga guns down Béni Kocsis as he tries to calm him… In a similar fashion to Kurosawa’s Rashomon, Fábri’s modernist film adaptation of the story presents each character’s moral version of the truth according to a simultaneous chronological narrative: from the killer Varga to the doctor, and from the count and the wealthy peasant farmer to President Jóska. In the role of the latter, Antal Páger is matched for dramatic power by his fellow cast members János Görbe, Ádám Szirtes and Lajos Őze… In addition to the grand prix in Moscow and Rome, this significant work of the modern Hungarian New Wave won acclaim at various international festivals and top film critics’ and film festival prizes at home in Hungary. It was only after the change of political system that one film critic wrote that “the Kádár consolidation and soft dictatorship never received, either before or subsequently, such an unambiguous and at once persuasive allegorical treatment, presented in novel form but mainly in film, as 20 Hours… The absolutely positive hero, the figure of Jóska the director, can be directly identified with the first secretary himself...” (Tibor Hirsch) Presented by: Palace of Arts
Parking information
We wish to inform you that in the event that Müpa Budapest's underground garage and outdoor car park are operating at full capacity, it is advisable to plan for increased waiting times when you arrive. In order to avoid this, we recommend that you depart for our events in time, so that you you can find the ideal parking spot quickly and smoothly and arrive for our performance in comfort. The Müpa Budapest underground garage gates will be operated by an automatic number plate recognition system. Parking is free of charge for visitors with tickets to any of our paid performances on that given day. The detailed parking policy of Müpa Budapest is available here.
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