Mari Törőcsik

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

A lawyer defends her father accused of war crimes, but there is more to the case than she suspects.

Kalán Imre, the district doctor lives in a small village surrounded by mountains. One day he is visited by two young relatives of his and their friend, a doctor at the beginning of his career. The name of the doctor is Király András, and he happens to be the great love of Kalán's young wife from her unmarried years. The orthodox Stalinist Kalán's entire life is filled with his great passion, hunting. The suffocating, narrow lives of the prominent people in the area are slowly revealed to András.

In turn-of-the-century Budapest, teenage gangs the Paul Street Boys and the Red Shirts have been skirmishing over a vacant lot. When the Red Shirts decide to drive the Paul Street Boys out, they appoint small, sickly Nemescek to spy on their opponents.

1866. The Habsburg monarchy fight a war against the Italians and the Prussians. General Klapka, who emigrated to England after the fall of the 1848-49 freedom fight of Hungary, exploits the situation and organises a Hungarian legion with the help of the Prussians, then attacking the Austrians in their back sets out to return to Hungary.

The Aurora Borealis is a story of family that is rich in twists and turns. It breaks the depths of the relationship between mother and daughter. A successful lawyer in Vienna, Olga is called back to Hungary when her old mother, Mary suddenly falls into a coma. While Mary is floating between life and death, Olga finds a deeply silent secret. The increasingly passionate research leads back to the post-war Europe of the '50s.

'A Guest of life' is inspired by the journey of Alexander Csoma de Koros. The eccentric 19th century set out from his native Transylvania to central Asia on foot, only taking his knowledge of 13 dead and spoken languages with him. He wanted to find the ancestors of the Hungarians, but once reaching Tibet he stayed there, compiling an English-Tibetan dictionary, translating and abridging Buddhist teachings and literature, including the Book of the Dead. The film however is not a biopic, but a collection of impressions of Tibet, recorded on an 8mm camera, overlaid with excerpts from Csoma's diary and translations, spoken on the many languages familiar to Csoma. Intercut with the documentary-style footage are animated segments, which tell Transylvanian folktales that have been weaved around the legendary figure of Csoma.

It has been fifteen years since the death of her father, Agamemnon, and Elektra still burns with hatred for Aegisztosz, who conspired with Elektra's mother to kill him.

The head of the nunnery is dying, and the members are divided in two groups as the election of the new head approaches. Led by Virginia, the younger nuns stand up for changing the strict religious dogmas and would like a modern school with genuine science, a bathroom to be built, and a freer spirit. Their candidate is sister Magdolna, who went to secular universities, too. The seminarists, led by Király Erzsi, also rebel against the older nuns' strict discipline and the depressed atmosphere of the institution. However, Magdolna does not want to stay involved in the fight because she is deterred by Virginia's sinful attraction towards her and the tools Virginia is using to gain victory at any price.

A man becomes acquainted with the mystery of female hands during a trip.

During the Rákóczi War of Independence, noblewoman Julianna Géczy becomes caught between warring factions as the city of Lőcse falls under siege.

This is the story of writer Alberto's long journey to Stockholm, where the Nobel Prize awaits him, in a blazing Maserati. He is accompanied by Alessandro, a young journalist whose job is to interview him along the way. Personal and generational dynamics arise between the two men, leading to misunderstandings, jealousies, quarrels, separations, love quarrels and so on, but also to growth for both of them. A story full of twists and turns and always played on the edge of irony.

Ede (Dezso Garas) is in his sixties, and he is full of uncertainty about how he and his wife Kati (Mari Torocsik) will fare in the new post-communist regime in Hungary. At least before, he had some idea what he needed to do to get by, and even if he never made much money with his myriad schemes, they got by. Kati has got a real bug in her ear about their livelihood, and is hounding him to get into the spirit of the new system. This is troubling enough for the old gent, but when he runs into an old mistress (Kati Lazar) and discovers that he has a grown son he has never met or knew about, his life becomes even more confusing. His slimy ex big-shot brother-in-law (Istvan Avar) is a major player in the new entrepeneurial risk-taking, and he beseiges poor Ede with advice as well. In this topical comedy, all these worrisome things, and more, come to a head at a big family celebrtion.

Three women from three generations are forced together, mentored by an old diva and a transvestite, to form a band. They are successful on stage, but off of it they are not getting along at all.

During the worldwide Depression of the 1930s, a young shopgirl is in love with a man of her own financial class, but succumbs to the seductive machinations of her wealthy boss.

The film is a story of a double journey. The main character of the first journey is the author himself, who, while sitting in his customary café, suddenly realises that he has hallucinations. The psychologist reassures him that all this is merely repression. The symptoms, however, appear again. Soon it turns out that the author has a brain tumour. Professor Pötzl in Vienna suggests operation right away. The intervention, through which he is awake, is carried out in a Stockholm clinic.

This Hungarian film chronicles the slow deterioration in the life of Juli, a farmer's wife. As the countryside grows ever more deserted because people are moving to towns or large collective farms, she spends more and more time alone. Despite her best efforts to appreciate her situation, her despair grows. The loneliness is briefly interrupted when she and her husband take in an old woman and care for her, but the woman dies. Shortly after her son visits, she is killed in an accident which may have been a suicide. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

This easy-to-take Hungarian drama is also known as Two Wishes. The prinicipal characters are a pair of juvenile delinquents, who may still be redeemable. The sullen duo is befriended by a kindly police inspector, who takes it upon himself to straighten out the boys. What follows cannot be termed surprsingly or innovative, though it is immensely satisfying. Of interest is the fact that a Communist-bloc film would admit to a delinquency problem in the so-called Worker's Paradise. Ket Vallomas was the Hungarian entry in the 1957 Cannes Film Festival.

Based on Shirley Jackson's eerie short story The Summer People.

The film, depicting life in the tenement houses of Angyalföld in the thirties joins the neorealist currents of Hungarian film. Ambrus Pista, the good humoured, attractive tram conductor is loved by women for his excellent job as well. With his lover, the street-walker Terus they spy upon the neighbour as he beats his wife in jealousy.

In pre-WWI Austria-Hungary, a physician struggles with his decision about which woman will he marry.

This film describes the narrator's childhood, the years before and after the Hungarian Soviet Republic, in a burlesque and fabulous style and with the humour of a child's fantasy.