Despite producing a relatively modest volume of feature-film output, Hungarian film talents regularly get themselves noticed at an international level, and this is sure to be the case once again at the 71st Locarno Film Festival (1-11 August 2018), with three films on the line-up, including the documentary Easy Lessons [+leggi anche:
recensione
trailer
scheda film] by Dorottya Zurbó, which will be presented in the Critics’ Week.

After zooming in on Bhutan in The Next Guardian (co-directed with Arun Bhattarai and unveiled last year at the IDFA), this time the director has taken an interest in a young African migrant. Kafia is 17 years old. Two years ago, she fled to Europe, to Hungary, on her own, in an attempt to escape a child marriage in Somalia. She has been living in a state children’s home in Budapest ever since. She learns the language, goes to high school, prepares for the Hungarian graduation exam and starts a modelling career. On the surface, everything seems fine; however, behind that beautiful and confident exterior lies a heavy heart. Her repetitive daily routine revolves around constant dilemmas and self-doubt about leaving behind her Muslim culture and everything else she grew up with. As she lets the camera get closer to her, the film slowly becomes an intimate confession. What does it mean, on the brink of adulthood, to break with your past and fully give yourself up to a new self in order to live in Europe? 

Easy Lessons was produced by Julianna Ugrin for Éclipse Film and received support from the Incubator programme of the Hungarian National Film Fund. As a reminder, Éclipse Films has already been singled out this year with A Woman Captured [+leggi anche:
recensione
trailer
scheda film], screened at various festivals (most notably the IFDA, Sundance and Sheffield) and crowned Best Documentary at the 2018 Hungarian Film Awards.

At Locarno, the country’s film industry will also be represented in the official selection by the animated movie Ruben Brandt, Collector [+leggi anche:
recensione
trailer
scheda film] by Milorad Krstic (see the news), which will be revealed in the Piazza Grande, and by Yesterday [+leggi anche:
trailer
scheda film] by Bálint Kenyeres (see our interview with him at Les Arcs Film Festival’s Work-in-Progress), in competition in the Filmmakers of the Present section.