The Whistling Cobblestone

A Poet from the Lower East Side

Filmmaker Gyula Gazdag's fascinating documentary follows Hungarian poet, playwright and activist István Eörsi on a trip to the streets of New York to visit his friend and contemporary, the iconic beat poet Allen Ginsberg. Shot just two years before Ginsberg's death, the film follows the two friends as they share poetry and laughs, wandering the streets of the Lower East Manhattan, musing about the past and contemplating the future.

Package Tour

A documentary which follows a coach party of former inmates on a trip to Auschwitz.

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.

Szilveszter

Hungarian short film.

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.

Lost Illusions

Via the New York Times: "The Hungarian director Gyula Gazdag has transposed the middle section of Balzac's "Lost Illusions" from Paris in the mid-19th century to the Budapest of 1968... it tells of Laszlo Sardi - Balzac's Lucien Chardon - and his efforts to launch his literary career amid the snobbery and sophistication of a big city."

Long Distance Runner

György Schirilla, known for his long-distance running and swimming across the icy Danube, ran to Moscow to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the October Revolution. A year later, a bistro was built in his honour in the small Hungarian village of Kenderes. Gyula Gazdag captured moments of his run to Kenderes and the opening ceremony. The film's original title comes from a "poem" delivered by the village council president, which included the line: "We can always count on your long run."

The banquet

Right after the Red Army in 1944 was deliberating a little village, Veszto in eastern Hungary, the locals formed their "government", excommunicated the goods remaining in the village and distributed them among the poor. The social experiment only lasted two months, but this episode later became infamous in the communist press of Hungary and was referred to as 'Republic of Veszto'. 35 years later, in 1979, the actors and the witnesses, the representatives of the communist administration back then and the poors of the village get together in a little pub in Veszto and try to resuscitate and evaluate those old days. The memories clash one another.

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.

Bastion Promenade Seventy Four

Mr. Dezső and Rezső are selecting the heroes for their new operetta. They represent different tastes and styles, and keep arguing about the casting of the four men and four women.

A Hungarian Fairy Tale

Shot in B&W, Gyula Gazdag's film follows the surreal and often comic quests of young Andris, an orphan searching for a father who doesn't exist, and Orban, a government clerk who's had enough of oppressive bureaucracy.

Prelude

Swap

This grotesque, micro-realistic film is set in a small village at the end of the seventies. A TV-staff comes to the Petőfi Memorial House. They want to record the comic opera, The Postman of Longjumeau, by Charles Adam, a 19th century French composer.

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