09/02/2012

The Hungarian National Film Found is taking its first steps as an international sales agent at the 62th Berlinale starting today. Klaudia Androsovits and Viktor Dudás’ team will notably show The Exam by Peter Bergendy (read more) about the paranoic domestic spying after the Budapest insurrection in 1956, and feature-length animation film The Tragedy of a Man by Marcell Jankovics, which won the Oscar for best animation short in 1974 and the Palme d’Or for best short film in Cannes in 1977, an adaptation of the eponymous play by Imre Madách that follows Adam, Eve, and Lucifer throughout history, from the Genesis to the end of the world.

In Berlin, pre-sales will also start on two films in production: the English-language thriller Barrel of a Gun by Dora Szucs, set in a a closed bank during a hold-up, and the comedy Couch Surf by Zsombor Dyga, whose main character is a three-seater sofa that we see in 11 different places, from the living room of a bachelor on the corner of a Parisian street to the doors of Hell, via the practice of a psychoanalyst.

For the festival, Hungarian cinema will be in competition with Just The Wind [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Bence Fliegauf
film profile] by Benedek Fliegauf (article) sold internationally by German sales agency The Match Factory.

It is worth noting that disagreements seem to be ongoing in Hungarian cinema. The Directors’ Association has revived the Hungarian Film Week, held in Budapest from February 2 to 5 under the presidency of Béla Tarr. But the official agency to promote Hungarian cinema did not advertise at all at the jury and prize-less event, that presented the collective film Hungary 2011 (news) and The Door by István Szabó (article), as well as films by György Pálfi, Kirsztina Deák, Ferenc Török, Sára Cserhalmi, Attila Vidnyánszky, Péter Forgács et Péter Fancsikai.

(Translated from French)