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RELEASES Hungary

Literary drunkenness in Death Rode Out of Persia

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Putyi Horvá’s second feature, Death Rode out of Persia (A halál kilovagolt Perzsiából) – which screened at the 2005 Turin Festival and in the section Sturm und Drang at the last Rotterdam festival – was released yesterday in Hungarian theatres by Mokep. The film is the first production from the TT Filmmuhely Workshop, headed up by well-known filmmaker Béla Tarr.

Adapted from the Péter Hajnóczy novel and starring László Melis, Zoltán Schneider, Kati Takáts and Linda Verebes, Death Rode Out of Persia is the story of a writer who realises after three years of heavy drinking that he has to get down to some serious work or risk having no money to continue his bingeing. So he starts a romantic novel in which the principal character (the writer’s young alter ego) must choose between the love of a woman and his addiction to cigarettes and alcohol. According to the director, the film "was produced on a very small budget, but the friendship between the crew allowed them to overcome the initial obstacles. A 17-minute version shot five years ago makes up part of the complete version".

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Horvá’s film is attempting to entice audiences away from the other three US titles and one Russian film that were also released this week, as well as the four US titles distributed last week. Non-domestic European cinema can, however, count on La vida secreta de las palabras [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Isabel Coixet
film profile
]
by Spain’s Isabel Coixet (see interview with the director and review), released on March 16 by Best Classics- Best Hollywood.

Finally, two Hungarian features remain in the weekly top 10 box office list: Relatives by István Szabó, in 4th place with €330,000 grossed in six weeks, and Peter Bacsó’s Who are the Lumnitzer Sisters? (see article), in 10th place with a total of €270,000 in two weeks.

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(Translated from French)

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