Hungarian films about surrealism

Between 1993 and 1999, one man robbed 29 financial institutions in Budapest. Banks, post offices and even travel agencies fell victim to his crime spree. The police had no leads and no hope of finding him during his six-year stint. The only clue left behind at the crime scenes was the distinct aroma of whiskey. The media christened him the “Whiskey Bandit”. Never physically harming anyone, many began to eagerly follow his escapades through the media. A Transylvanian immigrant, who also happened to be a goalie for one of the city's largest hockey teams, named Attila Ambrus, was finally identified as the “Whiskey Bandit”. The police had finally captured him... or so they thought.

Szabolcs plays in a German football team, as does Bernard. They are roommates, best friends, inseparable. A lost match makes him reconsider his life and he goes back to Hungary in hope for more simplicity. Yet his solitude does not last long. Soon after his arrival he meets Áron and a mutual attraction between the two boys develops when suddenly Szabolcs receives an unexpected phone call from Bernard: he has arrived to Hungary...

In 1960s socialist Hungary, a serial killer targeting young women torments a small town and the determined detective on his trail. Based on true events.

Favoring pedigree dogs, a new regulation puts a severe tax on mixed breeds. Owners dump their dogs and shelters become overcrowded. 13-year-old Lili fights desperately to protect her pet Hagen, but her father eventually sets the dog free on the streets. Hagen and his master search desperately for each other until Lili loses faith. Struggling to survive, homeless Hagen realizes that not everyone is a dog’s best friend. Hagen joins a gang of stray dogs, but is soon captured and sent to the pound. With little hope inside there, the dogs will seize an opportunity to escape and revolt against mankind. Their revenge will be merciless. Lili may be the only one who can halt this unexpected war between man and dog.

An unsettling feeling overwhelms a small Hungarian town when two orthodox Jews arrive with a mysterious trunk. As residents begin to speculate on the purpose of the visit of these two strangers, order starts to crumble in town with some pursuing devious plans and others finding remorse in their hearts.

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A war-hardened Crusader and his Moorish commander mount an audacious revolt against the corrupt English crown.

Bucharest, 2009. Twenty years after Romanian Revolution, Tavi Ionescu, a nice but quite immature guy for his late 30's finds out from his Securitate (Romanian Secret Police) file that he could be the father of a son he didn't know about. Starting his own secret investigation, Tavi is caught by a complicated past that now comes to reveal ugly hidden truths, messing up his life and the life's of the ones close to him. For the first time in his life, Tavi is forced to take really mature decisions.

A mother's struggle to support her child leads her into a surreal netherworld of sex and danger in this drama from Hungarian filmmaker Szabolcs Hajdu. Mona Paparu is a single mother who has been left to raise her daughter Viorica on her own, only to have her fitness as a parent called into question by her aunt Rodica. Forced to answer Rodica's charges in a meeting with Child Protective Service authorities, Mona tells the long, convoluted tale of how she fell in with Viorel, a charming but sinister underworld figure, in order to provide for her daughter. As Mona falls into debt to Viorel, he puts her to work in a variety of illegal enterprises, finally ending up in the Bibliotheque Pascal, an elegant but bizarre house of prostitution in which men can re-enact sexual scenarios inspired by great works of literature for a hefty fee. Bibliotheque Pascal was an official selection at the 2010 Berlin International Film Festival.

In 1477 Charles the Bold dies, his only child is a girl which cannot rule without a husband. Meanwhile in Austria, Emperor Frederick III and his antagonist Louis XI France battle over said marriage prospects, battles ensue, tragedy falls.

2038: George Almore is working on a true human-equivalent AI, and his latest prototype is almost ready. This sensitive phase is also the riskiest as he has a goal that must be hidden at all costs—being reunited with his dead wife.

A young Hungarian woman (played by Hungarian actress Orsi Tóth) wakes up inside a crashed car in the middle of nowhere, not knowing where her brother Isti is. Upset and alone, she leaves aboard a cargo ship to keep a promise she made to him. Once at sea, she withdraws into a dream world and loses grip on her life completely.

When Sam regains consciousness in the middle of a crowded subway, he doesn't know how he got there, where he came from nor his own name. He franticly searches for his identity, using the contents of his backpack. Slowly but surely he realizes his life is in great danger.

A young immigrant is shot down while illegally crossing the border. Terrified and in shock, wounded Aryan can now mysteriously levitate at will. Thrown into a refugee camp, he is smuggled out by Dr Stern, intent on exploiting his extraordinary secret. Pursued by enraged camp director Laszlo, the fugitives remain on the move in search of safety and money. Inspired by Aryan's amazing powers, Stern takes a leap of faith in a world where miracles are trafficked for small change...

Cristian, a young idealistic prosecutor whose career is on the rise, tries to crack a case against a senior colleague accused of corruption. The dilemma of choosing between his career and the truth weighs heavily on his shoulders. Looking further to solve the case, he enters a danger zone paved with unexpected and painful revelations.

Two introverted people find out by pure chance that they share the same dream every night. They are puzzled, incredulous, a bit frightened. As they hesitantly accept this strange coincidence, they try to recreate in broad daylight what happens in their dream.

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In the dark heart of a sprawling, anonymous city, two assassins carry out a sinister mission, a teacher battles a fatal illness, and an enigmatic janitor and a curious waitress lead dangerous double lives. Murderous consequences unravel in the dead of night, as their lives intertwine at the hands of a mysterious criminal mastermind who is hell-bent on revenge.

A feature-length anthology film. They are known as myths, lore, and folktales. Created to give logic to mankind’s darkest fears, these stories laid the foundation for what we now know as the horror genre.

Based on the original 1941 movie from Japan, and from ancient Japan’s most enduring tale, the epic 3D fantasy-adventure 47 Ronin is born. Keanu Reeves leads the cast as Kai, an outcast who joins Oishi (Hiroyuki Sanada), the leader of the 47 outcast samurai. Together they seek vengeance upon the treacherous overlord who killed their master and banished their kind. To restore honor to their homeland, the warriors embark upon a quest that challenges them with a series of trials that would destroy ordinary warriors.

The story begins a couple days after the war has ended. A group of Serbian soldiers in charge of clearing the fields from mines discovers a man sealed inside a factory's basement. A mysterious man says he is 'ours', he doesn't feel cold, isn't hungry and only asks for cigarettes. As soon as he is brought along, people start disappearing, and the infighting begins. Who is the mystery man?

Death does not select, man does. Set in Budapest, Heavenly Shift offers an eerie insight into the everyday lives of a rather extraordinary ambulance crew. The films main character is Milan, a young refugee from the Balkan War, who joins a team of paramedics but inadvertently ends up involved in the funeral business in order to finance his fiancee s rescue from the hostilities.

A teenager's quest to launch Norwegian Black Metal in Oslo in the 1990s results in a very violent outcome.

A man who lost his wife and daughter in the Holocaust and a girl who lost her parents meet. Knowing each other′s emptiness, they become like father and daughter. It is the beginning of a sad love that the world cannot accept.

Eszter, 16, is secretly in love with her English teacher, while Peter, also 16, is hopelessly in love with Eszter. One day, the teacher announces that he is leaving the school to move to London. That same day, Eszter receives a farewell e-mail message from him. An online affair begins and spirals into sexual abuse.

England, 15th century. Hal, a capricious prince who lives among the populace far from court, is forced by circumstances to reluctantly accept the throne and become Henry V.

This is the story of present-day Hungary's most famous gay celebrity who openly admits his homosexuality and fights for gay rights in a society where so many alternative values are denied. But then something happens and he is shocked to discover his growing interest in the female of the species.

Follow the perilous journey to freedom when a young boy and his dog attempt to escape a concentration camp during World War II. Based on true events.

Djata is a care-free 12-year-old growing up in a brutal dictatorship shut off from the outside world. When the government imprisons his father, Peter, and Djata and his mother Hannah are labeled traitors, the boy will not rest until he sees his father again.

The story of Nobel Prize winner Marie Curie and her extraordinary scientific discoveries—through the prism of her marriage to husband Pierre—and the seismic and transformative effects their discovery of radium had on the 20th century.

Chief Inspector Jules Maigret hunts for a serial killer.

And suddenly, overnight, the world came to a halt. Two men, two survivors, one kid, and hatred that separates them. A place forgotten by everyone, including the creatures that inhabit the Earth... until now.

The Blind Man has been hiding out for years in an isolated cabin and has taken in and raised a young girl who lost her parents in a house fire. Their quiet existence is shattered when a group of kidnappers show up and take the girl, forcing the Blind Man to leave his safe haven to rescue her.

With the Third Reich is at his peak in 1942, the Czech resistance in London plans the most ambitious military operation of WWII – Anthropoid. Two young recruits are sent to Prague to assassinate the most ruthless Nazi leader – Reinhardt Heydrich – head of the SS, the Gestapo and the architect of the Final Solution.

Inhabitants of a small village in Hungary deal with the effects of the fall of Communism. The town's source of revenue, a factory, has closed, and the locals, who include a doctor and three couples, await a cash payment offered in the wake of the shuttering. Irimias, a villager thought to be dead, returns and, unbeknownst to the locals, is a police informant. In a scheme, he persuades the villagers to form a commune with him.

Would you believe in a policewoman who suffers from such serious panic disorders that she is afraid to get close to any crime scene and has been on permanent office duty for more than a decade? Would you believe a lone mother who is unfit to pay her mortgage and also raise her rebellious teenage daughter? Indeed, no one believes that the troubled ex-detective has discovered a serial murder case. Personal dramas and a murder mystery unfold in present-day Budapest, where demonstrations are part of the pre-election life of a city still trying to cope with the shadows of its historical and recent past. It is a city where nothing seems honest and true, except through the eyes of an emotionally unstable policewoman and her misfit daughter who wants to know who her father truly was.

Tobi is a typical 16-year-old, desperate for the end of school and wondering what path in life to take. The hard-working people in Tobi’s tiny village struggle to make ends meet, while the kids can’t wait to escape to Budapest as soon as they turn 18. Against the challenges of an increasingly conservative Hungary, where trans rights are currently being stripped back, this insightful documentary generously shines a light on the journey of Tobi’s mother as much as Tobi themselves. Having come out once as male in his mid-teens, Tobi later shifts towards a non-binary identity. It’s a steep learning curve for the family to re-evaluate the deeply ingrained gender binary in this rural corner of Central Europe, but for this caring and communicative group, love wins the day.

Márta, a 40-year-old neurosurgeon, falls in love. She leaves her shining American career behind and returns to Budapest to start a new life with the man she loves. But she waits for him at the Liberty Bridge in vain - he does not appear at their rendezvous. Márta starts to search for him desperately, but when she finally finds him, the love of her life claims that they have never met before.

A fictionalized account of the last days of Edgar Allan Poe's life, in which the poet is in pursuit of a serial killer whose murders mirror those in the writer's stories.

After marrying a successful Parisian writer known commonly as Willy, Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette is transplanted from her childhood home in rural France to the intellectual and artistic splendor of Paris. Soon after, Willy convinces Colette to ghostwrite for him. She pens a semi-autobiographical novel about a witty and brazen country girl named Claudine, sparking a bestseller and a cultural sensation. After its success, Colette and Willy become the talk of Paris and their adventures inspire additional Claudine novels.

Inspired by Carmilla, the seminal 19th Century vampire tale by Sheridan LeFanu, STYRIA plunges the viewer into a haunted world of fantasy and obsession. In 1989, Lara Hill (Eleanor Tomlinson), accompanies her art historian father (Stephen Rea) to an abandoned castle across the Iron Curtain. From a car crash outside of the castle, emerges the beautiful and mysterious Carmilla. Lara secrets Carmilla into the castle and the two are drawn into an intoxicating relationship. But when Carmilla mysteriously disappears, and women of the town begin committing suicide, Lara’s psychic wounds erupt into a living nightmare that consumes the entire town of Styria.

In the horror of 1944 Auschwitz, a prisoner forced to burn the corpses of his own people finds moral survival trying to save from the flames the body of a boy he takes for his son.

An old Jewish baker struggles to keep his business afloat until his young Muslim apprentice accidentally drops cannabis in the dough and sends sales sky high.

Áron stands in his life as an average 29-year-old weirdo. He has many contemporary complexes, a fresh university degree, and a recent break up. His parents have to support him financially as he is still a job seeker and while Áron is agonizing on his lost love, he is always interrupted by something; it seems like he’s not the main character in his life.

An old woman flies past six floors after jumping from the roof of her apartment block. Six stories on the poor state of humanity, told with humour and rare imagination to the accompaniment of a pulsating soundtrack from Amon Tobin. A woeful burlesque set in the present by one of Europe’s most original contemporary filmmakers.

An off-duty SAS soldier, Tom Buckingham, must thwart a terror attack on a train running through the Channel Tunnel. As the action escalates on the train, events transpire in the corridors of power that may make the difference as to whether Buckingham and the civilian passengers make it out of the tunnel alive.

Drugdealer wants get out of the circle with his pregnant girlfriend and a time loop effect makes it more complicated.

Eszter, her husband Farkas, and their five-year-old son Bruno are paid an unexpected visit in the middle of the night. Eszter’s sister Ernella, her husband Albert and daughter Laura have returned from a year spent in Scotland where, contrary to expectations, they weren’t able to settle down. It soon becomes clear that the two families had never really been in tune with one another.

Set in 1920s Vienna, this is the tale of a little girl, whose godfather gives her a special doll one Christmas Eve.

In a village on the Hungarian border, two young brothers grow up during war time with their cruel grandmother and must learn every trick of evil to survive in the absurd world of adults.