János Tóth

In memory of Janos Toth.

Effects of refractional experiments put in the language of the film.

Effects of refractional experiments put in the language of the film.

This audio-visual universe peppered with Laozi quotations and made in Balázs Béla Studio represents the culmination of artistic self-expression of János Tóth. It is a self-selected auteur anthology of four of his experimental films.

This audio-visual universe peppered with Laozi quotations and made in Balázs Béla Studio represents the culmination of artistic self-expression of János Tóth. It is a self-selected auteur anthology of four of his experimental films.

Ragyogás is a polyphonic series of studies on film and light; it creates and reshapes cinema’s mythical world and language.

Ragyogás is a polyphonic series of studies on film and light; it creates and reshapes cinema’s mythical world and language.

A brothel in a small Hungarian town becomes the home of a medical student after his favorite working girls find out he's out of rent money. Trouble brews as they learn his mother is coming for a visit and they must transform the house.

A strange creature visits a very strange planet, where it watches the lives of the beans, the inhabitants of the planet. When the beans notice the creature's watchful eyes, they drive it away.

Karoly Makk's heartbreaking story of two unmarried sisters who cast wistful glances back at their lives, but still believe in hope and love, earned an Academy Award Nomination for Best Foreign Language Film in 1974. In this follow-up to the director's internationally acclaimed Love, Makk once again exhibits his extraordinary skills at drawing emotionally compelling performances from his talented female leads. Makk's film opposes the bleakness of the outside world with passion, love, and loyalty.

Karoly Makk's heartbreaking story of two unmarried sisters who cast wistful glances back at their lives, but still believe in hope and love, earned an Academy Award Nomination for Best Foreign Language Film in 1974. In this follow-up to the director's internationally acclaimed Love, Makk once again exhibits his extraordinary skills at drawing emotionally compelling performances from his talented female leads. Makk's film opposes the bleakness of the outside world with passion, love, and loyalty.

Poézis is, via the sculptures of a simple woodcarver, a cultural imprint of the life of the peasantry.

Poézis is, via the sculptures of a simple woodcarver, a cultural imprint of the life of the peasantry.

Based on the stories of Hungarian writer Gyula Krúdy, this iconic film is a lush and sensuous depiction of the life, loves and memories of serial seducer Szindbád.

Luca regularly visits her bedridden mother-in-law. Luca's husband, János, has been arrested on a trumped up political charge, and Luca does not know if he is still alive. Luca hides this from his mother by making up letters purporting to be from János who is directing a big film in New York. Luca discovers that János is alive, and is dismissed from her teaching job because of her husband. The dying mother anxiously awaits the return of her son from New York.

Ostensibly a non-narrative study of various aspects of a rural winter, this short film by one of modern Hungarian cinema’s greatest visual poets has all the spellbinding qualities of his better-known feature debut Sindbad (Szindbád, 1971), but here allied to a winning sense of humour that’s never quite allowed to detract from the haunting beauty of many of the images. The end of autumn is heralded by a few red leaves still clinging to a statue’s sculpted robes, while whip pans across the increasingly wintry landscape and close-ups of rippling water are given character by seemingly random freeze-frames and Zoltán Jeney’s electronic chirrups on the soundtrack. There are recurring shots of birds, migrating en masse, huddled by the icy water or lying individually dead, frozen stiff in the snow. So far Capriccio has been a reasonably generic mood piece, but then the snowmen arrive…

Ostensibly a non-narrative study of various aspects of a rural winter, this short film by one of modern Hungarian cinema’s greatest visual poets has all the spellbinding qualities of his better-known feature debut Sindbad (Szindbád, 1971), but here allied to a winning sense of humour that’s never quite allowed to detract from the haunting beauty of many of the images. The end of autumn is heralded by a few red leaves still clinging to a statue’s sculpted robes, while whip pans across the increasingly wintry landscape and close-ups of rippling water are given character by seemingly random freeze-frames and Zoltán Jeney’s electronic chirrups on the soundtrack. There are recurring shots of birds, migrating en masse, huddled by the icy water or lying individually dead, frozen stiff in the snow. So far Capriccio has been a reasonably generic mood piece, but then the snowmen arrive…

Aréna is nothing less than an attempt at spatial-temporal filming. It is an associative, avant-garde universe, the entire universe of the world, culture, edited into images of the masses participating in a match and then dispersing, in one- to four-frame flashes with music by Péter Eötvös.

Aréna is nothing less than an attempt at spatial-temporal filming. It is an associative, avant-garde universe, the entire universe of the world, culture, edited into images of the masses participating in a match and then dispersing, in one- to four-frame flashes with music by Péter Eötvös.

Often called a “film poem” or a “film symphonie” Huszárik’s masterpiece consists of montages of horses from the dawn of time to the modern times from cave paintings to horse races. (MUBI)

Two thieving gloves try to snatch an apple.

Religion, ruins. Hungary.

The triumphant adventures of the Hungarian baron Münchausen are recounted in the form of a musical.

In 1963 in Tihany, somebody addresses the writer Gábor Náday. He is reminded of a night drive in 1944 that saved his life. Painful memories start coming to Náday.

Most of her colleagues take Mária, the new teacher to be a communist party-worker, only Irma and the drawing teacher Zoli treat her kindly. Mária starts working with great enthusiasm, and her class learns to love her in a short time.

The film recounts the adventures of three lovable animals, a Viszla, a Dachshund and a northern goshawk. The animals are accidentally taken to the shores of Lake Kis-Balaton, where many surprises and adventures await them. Created in 1958, it is a classic of Hungarian nature film, generations have grown up with it, and today's children still enjoy the story of Ficko, Pletyka and Nimrod in a beautiful setting.