The Face

1946. Borok Vince, party secretary, and Holló Döme, former landowner, arrive in Nagybökény the same day at Easter. The latter wants to get back his castle and land with the help of his attorney. Albert József, the police-chief, wants to strengthen Communist power with tough actions. His R-guards disperse the clerical torch march.

Teréz is an obstetrician-gynaecologist. After her regular working hours she conducts a sociological survey about why couples do not have more children.

During his neurological treatment, Gábor recalls his recent past. Happy moments of his marriage flash upon him, then he remembers the conflict that made his wife leave him and the women on whose side he is trying to forget.

For the first time after 11 years, Simon, a young historian visits the village of his childhood at Balaton and Aunt Lina, his foster-mother. He gets upset by what he experiences there: the old woman's troublesome and vexing everydays, her quiet sadness. He is overwhelmed by his own memories, the death of his foster-father and by everything he was not aware of before, or he simply wanted to forget.

Two actors wandered from house to house in the countryside in the roles of the photographer and the retoucher business man offering their photographic services to the people.

A continuation of "Diary for My Children," the film picks up in 1950, when Juli, the diarist, is 18 and determined to become a movie director.

The movie is based on a short story by V. Kataev. A young tractor driver Duri loves Dorka, the daughter of the owner of a ring-throwing attraction. The girl's father is against the marriage. Durie makes a cunning plan: he starts practicing ring throwing. At the opening of the attraction, Durie takes part in the ring toss and wins prize after prize, which he immediately hands out to the people around him. Dorka's father allows Dury to marry Dorka to save his business from ruin.

Four young primary school teachers live together in a country cottage of a remote village and in a constant monotony somewhat varied with quarrelling with one another. They spend their lives around the school and the yard. One night, a cheerful company of hunters pops in their home.

After having lost her parents, young Juli returns from the Soviet Union to her native Budapest. Scarred by the wounds of the past, the ghost of Stalin’s oppression haunts her as she reunites with her aunt and adoptive mother Magda.

1958. In the cell of the condemned, seven men await the signs of an approaching execution. All of them recall their pasts and envision their wish-dreams.

Journeying photographers criss-cross the country. The apparatus in their hands creates a reality that never existed: group pictures of those who never faced a camera together, soldier and civilian, clean shaven and moustached. A mother of three is far from satisfied with her photo, this is not how she imagines herself at all. Time for the retoucher to get to work. Pál Zolnay made this affectionately ironic short as a study for his feature film Photography (Fotográfia).