Hungarian filmmaker Attila Hartung has completed his sophomore feature, Sinless (A pokol élővilága – lit. “The Wildlife of Hell”), a psychological thriller produced entirely independently. The film follows Hartung’s critically acclaimed debut feature, FOMO: Fear of Missing Out, and explores inherited crimes and generational responsibility, holding up a mirror to the past 15 years of Hungarian reality.

The story follows Henrik, who arrives as a guest at the castle of the Szentiványi family for a celebratory dinner; however, only his girlfriend, the family’s youngest daughter, suspects his true intentions. The Szentiványis are a construction-industry oligarch family that has been a defining player in the highest political and economic circles for several generations, and it is quite possible that in this strange game, they are already several steps ahead of Henrik. During the evening, the crimes of the past come to light, and Henrik also learns that a person can be without guilt, but never innocent.

The film brings together several generations of Hungarian actors, with Márk Nagy (We Started Together) and Anna Mészöly (Lesson Learned) in the leading roles as Henrik and the Szentiványi family’s youngest daughter. The ensemble also includes Róbert Alföldi (56 Drops of Blood), György Cserhalmi (The Vulture, Zelary), Réka Tenki (I Accidentally Wrote a Book), Tamás Lengyel (Corsage), Anna Hay (Growing Down) and Zsolt Dér (Raw Material). Cserhalmi, one of Hungary’s most prominent actors, is a recipient of the National Actor of Hungary title, and has appeared in more than 200 films, including István Szabó’s Oscar-winning Mephisto.

The screenplay was written jointly by Hartung and Attila Veres, the Péter Zsoldos Prize-winning author of horror novels and the writer of last year’s Hungarian success Feels Like Home. The “hell” in the movie’s original title, according to Hartung, “is not a concrete place, but a metaphor for the inherited, cross-generational system of crimes thanks to which the characters became successful. One of the central questions of the story is whether it is possible to break this process, or whether the burdens of the past are passed on again and again.”

Despite its high-profile cast and credits, Sinless was made without any state funding. M Kristóf Deák (FOMO: Fear of Missing Out) serves as cinematographer, with Péter Gábor Duszka as editor, Magdolna Varga as production designer and Adrienna Nagy as costume designer. Dávid Konsinczky composed the music, while Gábor Balázs is credited as sound designer.

Sinless is being produced by Petra Iványi for Lupa Pictures, in co-production with Hartung and Csaba Pék for Filmkontroll, Éva Bayer-Baróti and Ilona Baróti for GoodFilms, György Ádám (Jumpcut), Norbert Osbáth, Péter Magyar and Milán Szabó (Lions). The film will be released in Hungarian cinemas by Mozinet on 26 November 2026.