The Hungarian Film Festival of Los Angeles has been a constant presence in bringing an array of diverse films, features, documentaries and shorts each year to a city that holds a unique place in the movie industry, a city renowned for its film events.
This year, the Hungarian Film Festival of Los Angeles is celebrating the 100 birthday of the Hungarian Animation. Festival is presenting the diversity of the art of animation film making, children, adult, short and feature film length movies.
The Festival is an invitation to those who believe in the power of Hungarian cinema and its quest to be heard though their films, and has always been met with a great deal of enthusiasm and appreciation because of its ability to present unforgettable cinematic and artistic films through the years.
Festival Program for November 18 & 19:
November 18
5:00pm AURA
Four kids (Tokyo, Pete, Adam and Esther) wake up in their stranded car in an abandoned field to realize that the sun has failed to rise. As if that wasn’t strange enough, they then discover that the area around them is enveloped in a barely visible bionic “aura”. The aura reacts to their touch, and mysterious things soon start to happen: the kids find seashells in and around the car, the smell and the sound of the ocean fill the air, and long lost memories start to materialize in the front of their eyes.
Rainfall from nowhere, unexplainable noises, mysterious messages and a series of hidden clues force them to begin an otherworldly investigation that reveals much more than they imagined, when they unearth forgotten secrets rooted deep in the very origins of mankind. And these secrets have direct consequences not only on their own lives – but on the survival of our planet as we know it.
http://aurafilm.hu
Festivals:
2014 – Brussels BIFFF (in competition)
2014 – London Sci-Fi-London (in competition)
Director: Zsolt Bernáth – Screenplay: Márk Kis-Szabó – Director of photography: Tamás Szentkúti –
Editor: Zoltán Végh – Music: Róbert Gulya – Producer: Károly Váczy, Márk Kis-Szabó – Production company: Sherlockfilm Ltd.
Cast: Panka Kapócs, Péter Dubai, Kristóf Szénási, Ádám Ungvár
(Drying-short)
7:15pm SON OF THE WHITE MARE
Feherlofia, born the third son of a white mare, is blessed with superhuman powers and a keen interest in the stories of old. Stranded alone in a long ago era, he sets out on a quest to unite with his two brothers and destroy the dragons that dethroned the almighty Forefather many years prior.
SON OF THE WHITE MARE is world-renowned Hungarian animator Marcell Jankovics’ tribute to the nomadic steppe tribes, those Bronze Age hunter-gatherers who tamed the horse and placed their faith in spiritual stories of the fantastic. Jankovics’s animation style is a revelation for the unfamiliar, as gorgeous as it is psychedelic, moving and morphing almost too quickly to process, each frame a masterpiece that adds up to an overwhelming experience.
Known affectionately in his home country as “the Hungarian Walt Disney”, Marcell Jankovics received an Oscar nomination at the age of 23 for his short “Sisyphus” (1974), which was repurposed over three decades later for a GMC Super Bowl commercial. His short film “The Struggle” won the Palme d’Or at the 1977 Cannes Film Festival. After nearly three decades in production, his 160 minute masterpiece The Tragedy of Man was released in 2011 to rave reviews.
Director: Marcell Jankovics – Music: Istvan Vajda – Producer: Roman Kuncz – Production Company: Pannonia Film
Cast: György Cserhalmi – Vera Pap – Mari Szemes – Gyula Szabó – Ferenc Szalma – Szabolcs Tóth
9:30pm COUCH SURFING
In everyday life, there are couches all around. Since the Roman Empire it became such a natural piece of every space, man has created, nowadays we don’t even notice it. We might appreciate it when we sink into its arms, otherwise it’s just something for our booty.
It pleases all of us without reference of age, pedigree, religion or circumstances. You find a couch anywhere from school to workplace, clubs to pubs, down the ground or up high, till you finally arrive home. It is waiting for you with everlasting tolerance, and has seen everything a man could pass through. Love, death, friendship, solitude, caducity, magic, laughter and tears. Jizz and puke.
The movie’s main character and constant performer is the COUCH. A solid Zelig, for three, set in various places, and faraway lives. In a bachelor’s living room, on a corner in Paris, at the therapist, or the gates of Hell. Coffee break shorts on eleven different couches.
Every new micro-universe brings new figures, new conflicts, actions and solutions. Honest, snappy, flab Bering, and shocking everyday situations, breath taking moments served with style. Our lovely small fries are fighting their own daemons, with unexpected turns and reactions. A comedy of fixations, frustrations, and neurosis. A joyful observation in the depths of our humanity. But still, we feel like we’re watching moments of our teeming, messy everyday life.
Director: Zsombor Dyga – Screenplay: Ágnes Mészöly, Zsombor Dyga, Norbert Köbli – Director of photography: ábor Marosi – Editor: Judit Czakó – Music: The Uptown Felaz – Producer: István Major – Production company: Filmteam
Cast: Kata Bartsch, Ferenc Elek, Roland Rába, Andrea Fullajtár, Zsolt Anger, József Gyabronka, Zsolt Nagy, Mónika Balsai, Gabriella Hámori, Vica Kerekes, Franciska TörÅ‘csik
(Heavens Guard-short)
November 19
5:00pm VIKTORIA
Directed by Men Lareida – Written By Men Lareida & Anna Maros
Cast: Franciska Farkas, Angela Stefanovics, Zsolt Nagy, Erika Poloskey
Viktoria’s daily life consists of eking out a living by any means possible, including the illegal sale of no-longer fresh vegetables. It is a life without a daily routine or plan as to how or where to make a living.
When one day her friends come back from abroad with lots of money in their pockets, decorated with plastic jeweler and cheap clothing, Viktoria realizes that the district offers neither her nor her family any future. In silence and alone, she decides to go and work in the West.
In Zurich she hopes to find big money. Night after night she walks Zurich’s wan red light district, waiting for customers who she’s to service packed up on some lot. She counteracts her repulsion with anaestheti¬sing narcotics and the thought of a better future. Despite her ever-more precarious position, she finds in the world of fast sex and violence also love, friendship and herself’.
(The Wall short)
(The Wall-short)
7:15pm PILLANGO – BUTTERFLY
Moricz Zsigmond’s novel, Butterfly was written in only a few days in 1924. In Moricz’ triumphant and all-powerful, story of love speaks the language of the common people. Director, Laszlo Vitézy’s television production presents through emotions Zsuzsika and Jóska „lightning and veil soft love”. With excellent and well-known actors (Gabor Reviczki, George Cserhalmi, Agi Szirtes) as well as two great young actor Vivianne Banovits, Valentine Adorjani) created the director this, today is still touching fate made drama. Passions, emotions, tears and humor, poverty and wealth, game and reality.
Director: Vitézy László – Writer: Móricz Zsigmond – Cinematographer: Pap Ferenc, Markert Gábor
Producer: Kálomista Gábor
Cast: Bánovits Vivianne (Zsuzsika) – Adorjáni Bálint (Jóska) – Ráckevei Anna (Hitves Pálné) – Pindroch Csaba (Andris) – Bordán Irén (Jóska anyja) – Cserhalmi György (Jóska apja) – Gáspár Sándor (Bodollai)
Tóth Ildikó (Bodollainé) Csányi Sándor – Székely B. Miklós
9:30pm STREAM OF LOVE
A documentary tale of an elderly peasant widower who decides to take the plunge for a second time and marry again. The old boy visits all the available women in the village to reveal a series of secrets about love and life, with a simplicity and charm that brings tears to the eyes.
Festivals:
2014 – Nashville Independant Film Festival (in competition)
2014 – Oslo Eurodok
2014 – Thessaloniki Documentary Festival
2014 – Toronto Hot Docs
2014 – Trieste Film Festival (in competition)
2014 – Zagreb ZagrebDox (in competition)
2013 – Amsterdam IDFA (in competition)
(2013, documentary, digital, colour, 70 min.)
Director: Ágnes Sós – Director of photography: Zoltán Lovasi, Ágnes Sós, András Petróczy – Editor: Thomas Ernst – Music: János Másik – Sound: Tamás Zányi – Producer: Ágnes Sós – Co-producer: Hanka Kastelicova, Julianna Ugrin – Production company: HBO Europe, DokuArt, Éclipse Film
(Symptom-short)
SPECIAL SCREENING AT Laemmle’s Royal Theater
7:30pm THE AMBASSADOR TO BERN
On August 16, 1958 two Hungarian immigrants break into the Hungarian embassy in Bern and take the ambassador hostage. As the Swiss police surrounds the building and a group of Hungarian immigrants shows up on the street to demonstrate, a tense, twist-filled hostage drama plays out behind the closed doors of the embassy. Based on a true story.
Director: Attila Szász
Writer: Norbert Köbli
Stars: János Kulka, Tamás Szabó Kimmel, József Kádas | See full cast and crew »
(BANNED MUSIC-short)