István Szabó

Offenbach's Secret

Academy Award winner Istvan Szabo brings to the screen Offenbach's operettas set against the backdrop of power and intrigue in 19th century Paris. Offenbach's Secret follows the staging of Croquefer and Les deux Aveugles at the Theatre des Bouffes-Parisiens founded by Offenbach in 1855. Limited by French law to one act with no more than three singers, Offenbach's early operettas were filled with biting social commentary and poked fun at the moral ambiguity of France's Second Empire under Napoleon III. In addition to Offenbach's vivacious music, the film features lush costumes, period details, and striking set designs.

Death Waltz

From a policewoman broken leg seems completely slip out of the soil. Life-threatening love triangle mixed with her husband and their criminal friends.

Sunshine

The fate of a Hungarian Jewish family throughout the 20th century.

You

A playful portrait of a young woman who merrily roams the streets of Budapest. A New Wave love letter in motion.

Stand off

In a border town two sons of the local commander using stolen arms take hostages of eighteen girls in a dormitory, because they want to go West by plane.

Shem

Daniel, an arrogant, restless young Londoner is bored with his meaningless life. He seeks sympathy from his old Jewish grandmother, who sends him on a mission to Europe to find the grave of her father who disappeared during World War II.

Ten Minutes After

Hungarian director Istvan Szabo with "Ten minutes after" tells the family drama of a wife who is about to celebrate her husband's 40th birthday. Ten minutes later... the idyllic family atmosphere has completely changed.

City Map

Through the personal memories of István Szabó we can became the observers of the life of Budapest.

Lovefilm

A story of two young people in Hungary, Jancsi and Kata. First they are good friends, later lovers. Soon after the 1956 Revolution Kata leaves Hungary, Jancsi stays there. After 10 years Jancsi is allowed to visit Kata in France, their love is reborn, but after a short, very happy period Jancsi has to return to Hungary and their love fades as years have gone by.

Confidence

Janos and Kata are thrown together during the Second World War and forced to pose as husband and wife to hide from the Nazis. The intensity and suffocating intimacy of their new relationship and the circumstances in which they find themselves, forces them to confront past prejudices and assumptions and challenge what they truly believe.

Dialogue

The film depicts the period between 1945-60 through the life of a communist couple. Barna Judit, just released from a concentration camp and Horváth László, with an illegal past are brought together by the communist movement. They study and make plans together in the hope of a future that will make sense. The marriage they just entered, however, gets ruined soon by the events of history.

Budapest, amiért szeretem

István Szabó reveals a lesser-known side to the public in this work, which strings together eight shorts of Budapest into a single movie. In the piece interpretable as a declaration of love addressed to the capital there are numerous motifs that are also to be found woven through the director’s major features, first and foremost Szerelmesfilm (Love Film), Tűzoltó utca 25. (25 Fireman’s Street) and Budapesti mesék (Budapest Tales). Besides allowing the viewer to marvel at the cityscape from 50 years ago in a series of fast-moving images, the film is still primarily about Szabó’s Budapest: his observations, his impressions, his imagination.

Colonel Redl

Set during the fading glory of the Austro-Hungarian empire, the film tells of the rise and fall of Alfred Redl, an ambitious young officer who proceeds up the ladder to become head of the Secret Police only to become ensnared in political deception.

A Theme with Variations

This film of three parts recalls memories from World War II. The titles of the parts are: Impartially, Terrified and Like a scream.

Being Julia

Julia Lambert is a true diva: beautiful, talented, weathly and famous. She has it all - including a devoted husband who has mastermined her brilliant career - but after years of shining in the spotlight she begins to suffer from a severe case of boredom and longs for something new and exciting to put the twinkle back in her eye. Julia finds exactly what she's looking for in a handsome young American fan, but it isn't long before the novelty fling adds a few more sparks than she was hoping for. Fortuately for her, this surprise twist in the plot will thrust her back into the greatest role of her life.

25 Fireman's Street

On one hot summer night, the residents of a Hungarian apartment house slated for demolition restlessly revisit their haunted pasts as they face an uncertain future. In a gently turning kaleidoscope of dream imagery, regret-laden nostalgia and painstakingly intimate detail, the looming wrecking ball pales in significance to the accumulated experiences each dreamer revisits. Pre-war prejudice, occupying Nazis and Stalinist deprivations all come and go as each tenant’s backward glance yields moments of aching sensuality, infectious exuberance and catastrophic loss.

Age of Illusions

Jancsi is part of a closely knit gang of young engineers. They see the older engineers as mediocre, and have grand ideas about developing new inventions together. With changing living conditions the five friends start to grow apart. At a party Jancsi suddenly meets Éva Halk. They fall in love, and find common memories in the engagement in The Pioneer Railway at the age of 12.

The Door

Emerenc, an elderly and private woman, is hired to be the housekeeper of a struggling writer, Magda. An event in the writer's life prompts Emerenc to disclose details of her traumatizing past, which will bond the two women forever. Based on the novel by Magda Szabó.

Taking Sides

One of the most spectacular and renowned conductors of the 1930s, Wilhelm Furtwangler's reputation rivaled that of Toscanini's. After the war, he was investigated as part of the Allies' de-Nazification programme. In the bombed-out Berlin of the immediate post-war period, the Allies slowly bring law and order to bear on an occupied Germany. An American major is given the Furtwangler file, and is told to find everything he can and to prosecute the man ruthlessly. Tough and hard-nosed, Major Steve Arnold sets out to investigate a world of which he knows nothing.

Mephisto

A German stage actor finds unexpected success and mixed blessings in the popularity of his performance in a Faustian play as the Nazis take power in pre-WWII Germany. As his associates and friends flee or are ground under by the Nazi terror, the popularity of his character supercedes his own existence until he finds that his best performance is keeping up appearances for his Nazi patrons.

Hanussen

A man's story parallels Hitler's rise. Austrian Klaus Schneider, wounded in World War I, recovers in the care of Dr. Emil Bettleheim. Bettleheim discovers that Schneider possesses powers of empathy and of clairvoyance, such that could aid suicidal patients. After the war, with one friend as his manager and another as his lover, Schneider changes his name to Eric Jan Hanussen and goes to Berlin, as a hypnotist and clairvoyant performing in halls and theaters. He always speaks the truth, which brings him to the attention of powerful Nazis. He predicts their rise (good propaganda for them) and their violence (not so good). He's in pain and at risk. What is Hanussen's future?

Meeting Venus

Celebrated Swedish opera star Karin Anderson is slated to appear in an internationally-telecast production of Tannhauser. Ms. Anderson balks at the notion of working with obscure Hungarian conductor Zoltan Szanto. The much-anticipated production may never get off the ground, thanks to labor-management difficulties, intramural jealousies, and clashing egos. Amidst all this chaos, the mismatched Anderson and Szanto fall in love.

Ten Minutes Older: The Cello

Collection of short films the summaries of which include; a foreign man moving to Italy, getting married and having a child; a four split scene short involving plot-less images of old people with television sets for heads, a beautiful woman having sex, and overall confusion; and an old man reminiscing over his youth.

I Served the King of England

Prague, Czechoslovakia, during the inter-war period. Jan Dítě, a young and clever waiter who wants to become a millionaire, comes to the conclusion that to achieve his ambitious goal he must be diligent, listen and observe as much as he can, be always discreet and use what he learns to his own advantage; but the turbulent tides of history will continually stand in his way.