She won the award for the set design of "Poor Things."Continue reading
The Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale) has just ended, which gave the Hungarian Film Database the idea to compile a list of the most popular Hungarian films in Germany. According to the Filmstarts.de online film database, Son of Saul tops the list, followed by Mephisto and The Story of My Wife.
Two films by László Nemes Jeles and Ildikó Enyedi are also among the most popular films, reports Mandiner.
Of the ten films, only one was made before 2000.
1. Son of Saul
Saul (Géza Röhrig) works in a Sonderkommando in Auschwitz. His job is to help the death factory run smoothly. One day he recognizes his son in a dead child. He decides to bury him. László Nemes Jeles’ 2015 film redefined the genre of the Holocaust film. In addition to the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival, it also won the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film and a Golden Globe.
2. Mephisto
István Szabó’s 1981 epic became the first Hungarian film to win the Oscar for Best International Feature Film. When Hendrik Höfgen (Klaus Maria Brandauer) plays Mephisto in Faust, he becomes the country’s most popular actor. He will remain so after the Nazi Party takes power. His friends and his wife flee, but he makes his own little compromises so that he does not have to give up success.
3. The Story of My Wife
Based on the novel by Milán Füst, Ildikó Enyedi’s 2021 film stars Gijs Naber and Léa Seydoux. Through the lovable, painfully honest character of Captain Störr, the audience understands the complexity, mystery, fragile beauty, elusive, and uncontrollable nature of life in an elemental way, through the senses.
4. Taxidermia
György Pálfi’s chronologically structured film, based on short stories by Lajos Parti Nagy, was made in 2005. The main characters are three successive generations of a family. The evolution of their fate is a kind of subjective history book, revealing the most typical life experiences of the second half of the 20th century.
5. On Body and Soul
Through the contradictory relationship between body and soul, Ildikó Enyedi shows the fragile miracle of love. The film won the Golden Bear at the 2017 Berlinale. Alexandra Borbély was voted Best Actress by the European Film Academy for her performance in the movie. The film was nominated for an Academy Award in 2018, and was one of the five best foreign language films.
6. Post Mortem
Péter Bergendy’s film, released in 2021, is the first true Hungarian horror film set in a unique era, after the First World War and the Spanish flu pandemic. The spectacular scenes of the film were shot in the Hungarian Openair Museum (in Szentendre, near Budapest). It terrifies and surprises the audience with stunning visual effects and a script that is always full of twists and turns.
7. Coyote
In this 2017 production by Márk Kostyál, Misi inherits his grandfather’s house and estate. He sets out to rebuild the house, but in doing so, he harms the interests of the local oligarch. A fierce battle for wealth, love, and life begins.
8. Sunset
Sunset is a 2018 Hungarian-French drama film, the second feature film by László Nemes Jeles. It was invited to the competition section of the 75th Venice International Film Festival and the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival. The story is set in Budapest in 1913, the last days of peace. Protagonist Írisz Leiter returns after many years, and the young girl, orphaned at an early age, has every desire to get a job in her late parents’ legendary hat shop. However, the new owner, Oszkár Brill, refuses, and is determined to get her out of town.
9. Land of Storms
Land of Storms is a drama of adolescence: a moving, emotional story of adolescents coming of age in search of their true selves. Szabolcs plays with Bernard on a German football team. They are roommates, best friends – inseparable. After a losing match and a nasty argument, Szabolcs rethinks his life and goes home to Hungary in the hope of a simpler life. However, this does not last long.
10. White God
White God is a 2014 Hungarian drama film co-written and directed by Kornél Mundruczó. The film premiered in May 2014, as part of the Cannes Film Festival. In the movie, thirteen-year-old Lili fights to protect her dog Hagen. She is devastated when her father eventually sets Hagen free on the streets. Still innocently believing love can conquer any difficulty, Lili sets out to find her dog and save him.
Via Mandiner; Featured image via Facebook/Son of Saul / Saul fia