Lajos Kovács

Kontroll

A tale about a strange young man, Bulcsú, and the fellow ticket inspectors on his team who work aboard the subterranean Budapest Metro. A tale about racing along the tracks, and about a mysterious serial killer. And a tale about love.

Hadik

During the Seven Years War, Austrian Queen Maria Theresa sends her best general, András Hadik and his Hussars to raid Berlin and humiliate the Prussian King, Frederick the Great.

Pulzaar

Csótány, the 30-year-old rocker, works as a locksmith's assistant. He lives with his aunt, who accepted him in her apartment in Pest, but Csótány can no longer contribute to the rent. His two biggest passions in life: his favorite Norwegian metal band, Pulzaar, and his secret love, Évike from the bakery downstairs. When he sees the poster that his beloved band is coming to Budapest, he is struck by lightning, which sets off a whole chain of events. Will he finally manage to get to the concert and gather all his courage to invite Éviké as well?

Abandoned

Áron is a happy child in his family. But at some point things take a different turn, and his mother starts to lose her health rapidly. As this happens, the man in charge decides what's best for Áron without consulting the young boy's opinion, and the boy finds himself thrown out of his warm home into an orphanage in the woods. He's utterly displeased by what's happening, without knowing he has yet to face much worse...

Before Dawn

Before Dawn has a single shot which is several minutes in length. Technically this is immaculate, visually it is stunning. The story is set in a field; where the field is we don't know, but a lone truck drives up into the field and stops. A horn beeps and from beneath the long grass thirty of so people appear and proceed to enter the truck. We take it they hiding from something and this is their doorway. The truck leaves, but only to be greeted by a mass of police and even a helicopter blocking their path.

Katapult

During the fall of the Soviet Union a young Hungarian boy falls in love with an American girl, when she comes for a short visit to her parent's old town in Hungary. In order to see her again, the 13 year-old boy decides to create a special machine that could transport him to the USA.

Argo

The crew of Tibi Balogh sets out on a journey across Hungary to get the ancient Gold Owl statue, as well as the Milk Man. The treasure is worth millions, who gets there first?

Wildboar Hunting

November 1664. The autumnal peace of the Kursanec forest is suddenly shattered by the noise of a hunting party. The leader of the hunters is Miklós Zrínyi, one of the most powerful men in the country. Neither he nor the members of the merry party can imagine how the day will end. The film presents a tragic event in Hungarian history, which is still not fully understood and which will later affect the fate of the whole country. Hunting accident or assassination? There are many theories and explanations, rumours and anecdotes about the events of this autumn day. Is it plausible that the life of a renowned general, an excellent hunter and a respected poet should come to such a fatal end? Who was he whose terrible fate was facilitated even by such potentates as Louis XIV, the Sun King?

Rinaldó

The Hungarian version of the "The Seven Samurai" and "The Magnificent Seven". A ruthless bandit gang terrorizes the residents of a crumbling Budapest tenement until a group of unemployed steelworkers, rather than samurai or gunmen, steps in to defend them. Amid fierce battles, intrigue and blossoming friendships and romances, a wandering circus knife‐thrower ensures that, unlike the originals, none of the heroes need be buried at the end.

Banana Skin Waltz

A typist girl who is under the influence of nervous breakdown walks out to the street stark naked from the office she works in. A young physician goes by accidentally and tries to help her, spreading his coat over her nude body. From this moment his life changes completely.

Paths of Light

Two stories running in parallel: In one, a model is surrounded by men wanting to use and abuse her though, without realizing it, she is protected by a strange tramp guardian angel. In the other, a blind goldsmith struggles to produce his latest commission in the midst of his alcoholism and depression. Both then descend further and further into their own personal hells until they finally re-find peace with themselves and then their stories briefly merge.

Love Till Last Blood

Füge lives with an 18-year-old girl Nina who dances and sings in a disco. Despite their age difference, their relationship is mainly erotic. Füge has a little daughter Fanny from a one-day relationship. Füge adore Fanny, who is often at their place for safekeeping. Füge is forced into an operation in Szeged, where he has to do business with a local underlord - at any cost. Meanwhile, Nina, an extraordinary beauty, is increasingly being discovered by photographers and the fashion world. Füge, as he travels down to Szeged to complete the assignment, accidentally bumps into Ágota (his lover in the first two films) on the train. They haven't seen each other for 15 years. She has married a detective in Italy.

Csudafilm

A disowned son of a Greek aristocrat arrives in Hungary in 1949 over his family’s communist beliefs and starts work in the Lágymányos tobacco factory, where he falls for Gizi Weiss and fathers their first child in 1953. Fifty years later, the now-destitute “Ratkó baby” is whisked from the Baross Square underpass to Crete by a legion of lawyers to claim his share of a legendary inheritance.

Thorn Castle

Tutajos is an excellent student whose parents decide to reward his academic achievements with a vacation to the countryside. Robbed of his gadgets and easy city-lifestyle, Tutajos finds himself completely out of his element – until a goodhearted ranger named Matula teaches him how to get back to nature. As Tutajos’ best friend Bütyök joins him on his vacation, the two boys learn the joys of camping, hunting, and living off of the land.

Magasmentés

Felix, a high rescue specialist, brings down suiciders from bridges in a city in crisis. His son, who secretly makes videos of dangerous rescues and sells them to TV, blames his father for the loss of his mother. As Felix tries to reconnect with his son and help people at any cost, dramatic events unfold.

The Fall

On a single day the fate of three couples are joined and some of them sealed.

Erosion

The film constructs a strongly conventionalised and symbolic world out of the diary fragments of a man who underwent an alcohol detoxification treatment. The protagonist of this unusual family story, Petunia Joe, lives in a house with his mother and grandfather. One day, he suddenly turns adult. Out in LIFE, he takes his first steps in the Factory. Meaningless work is performed and barren relationships are formed among the rusted walls.

Semmelweis

Set in 19th century Vienna, Ignac Semmelweis, a short-tempered but passionate doctor, delivers babies and carries out autopsies on a daily basis while looking for the cause of puerperal fever, the mysterious epidemic that decimates patients in the hospital.

Cloud Above the River Ganges

András and Juli meet at a desperate moment in their lives, when they have both made a difficult decision, the consequences of which they cannot bear alone. András, a talented but heavily addicted programmer, decides to end his career, while Juli, a budding actress, has left her husband and temporarily her daughter to rethink her life. The two move in together and lock themselves in Andrew's apartment, where he enters his umpteenth detox, while Juli tries to help him with patience and love. In the weeks that follow, they explore the deepest depths of human existence, a hell of fear and humiliation, of physical and mental suffering. The hope of healing can mean new possibilities in the lives of these two men.

Shooting Gallery

Three people live together without having anything to do with each other. The macho father used to have a shooting gallery which he had to sell. Yet secretly, he keeps on dreaming about it.

The Great Post Office Robbery

The heroes of this crime-comedy attempt to get hold of money by a funny trick. They start operating the new post-office of the housing estate a week before the official opening, pocketing the revenue themselves. The inhabitants of the estate do not understand the trick, and loads of money pour to the swindlers.

Argo 2

Tibi and his small‐time crook crew haven’t grown wiser in ten years and are hired by a shadowy Japanese syndicate to steal a priceless data drive. Clueless about IT, they drag along a computer‐science teacher, only to trigger revenge from a Roma mafia boss, face off against Japanese hitmen and even anger the Slovak army. As their dream of escaping to a Malibu beach with the loot fades, Tibi’s street smarts might be their only hope.

One Winter Behind God's Back

In the year of change in Eastern Europe, in a remote village, the regular movie show, scheduled once a week, terminates due to the motor courier’s being killed in an accident. The children find the scattered film containers, and along with the old reels left in their place they play the films they have seen so often before.

The Curse of The Black Mummy

Inside a literary cafe, novelists convene to trade ideas, imagine stories and dream of greatness. Inspired by the works of Hungarian writer Jenő Rejtő.

The Turin Horse

A monumental windstorm and an abused horse's refusal to work or eat signal the beginning of the end for a poor farmer and his daughter.

The Witman Boys

Turn-of-the-century Hungary. Two young brothers, neglected by their cold and uncaring mother, descend deeper and deeper into psychosis, with tragic consequences.

School of Senses

Hungarian erotic thriller based on the novel Erzekek Iskolaja. Lily, a young gypsy girl, falls madly in love with a dashing salesman who introduces her to life's pleasures. When Lili discovers he is engaged to another, her life begins to spiral downward.

Maria's Day

The Hungarian Maria's Day is set in that most fateful of years, 1848. The incredible changes and reverses in European politics and culture exert a potent influence on one aristocratic Hungarian family. Losing virtually everything in the way of creature comforts, the family tries to keep up appearances. Eventually every member of the clan falls victim to illness, syphilis and their own headstrong foolishness. The parallels drawn by director Judith Elek between the dissipation of 19th century Hungarian aristocracy and the corruption of Communist ideology in modern times are inescapable.

The Door

Emerenc, an elderly and private woman, is hired to be the housekeeper of a struggling writer, Magda. An event in the writer's life prompts Emerenc to disclose details of her traumatizing past, which will bond the two women forever. Based on the novel by Magda Szabó.

The Pregnant Papa

In the small village of Rátót, every male is called Béla. When a woman gives birth to her child, she names him Józsi...

Adventurers

Trumpet player Géza Elekes does not play very well in his private life, and his fourth marriage has failed. One day he gets a call from his father, whom he hasn't spoken to in decades. This prompts her and her son, András, who is in the thick of things, to visit her parents, who live across the border. When he arrives in Transylvania, his father says he is fed up with her jealousy and moves in with him. Géza reluctantly accepts the idea, but eventually the three men set off for Budapest. Along the way, they face many trials and tribulations: hit-and-runs, chases, women, corpses and the green border.

Woyzeck

Lajos Kovács (WINGS OF DESIRE) stars as the misused Woyzeck, who ekes out a miserable existence sweeping train tracks, running errands for a bullying army captain and acting as a human guinea pig for a local doctor with ideas about free will. When his common-law wife begins an affair with a local cop, Woyzeck's pocket Bible and near-starvation diet point him on a downward spiral of twisted redemption.

Wild

1859. Exploiting the Austrian-French-Italian conflict, Kossuth sends Batiszy Kristóf back from the emigration to organize the Hungarian Legion. Batiszy's company gets into trouble, Austrians are waiting for them, Hungarian authorities chase them, people stand still. Demolition of the troop is the task of Görgényi László chief district administrator, who used to be an officer in the revolution once.

Bro'

There is the housing estate. There's Artin, a music geek with the mentality of a teenager at twenty-three, and his brother Nate, a sex-crazed porn writer on the run from hole to hole. And then there are a few other possessions: a second-hand large apartment, an inherited small apartment, and a second-hand inherited woman. But which one goes to whom?

A Bizarre Romance - Rural Decameron

Living on the farms of Homoktanya, Józsi spends his time drinking and stealing valuables from others until he finds true love in the form of a blow-up doll.

Shadow on the Snow

A man who leads a lonely existence with his young daughter accidentally gets involved with a robbery before a manhunt ensues.

Sunshine

The fate of a Hungarian Jewish family throughout the 20th century.

Fetus

This drama follows the dilemma of a young, unwillingly pregnant wife who gives her child up for adoption by a businesswoman. Anna doesn't need another mouth to feed. She can barely afford to care for the two she already has so when she discovers that she is six weeks pregnant she readily accepts the cash offer from Terez, her tough boss at the store where she works. If she will isolate herself throughout the pregnancy, secretly bear the child and immediately allow Terez to sign for it, Anna will receive $50,000. Most of the story then focuses upon Anna's emotional processes as she evaluates her choice. Included are dream segments and shots an unborn baby in the womb.

Tarr Béla: I Used to Be a Filmmaker

A documentary about the making of The Turin Horse, the last film directed by Hungarian master Béla Tarr.

Budakeszi srácok

Hungary, 1950s. Istvánka is a sensitive little boy, longing for a role model and friendship, whose father died in the war before he was born. Before school starts, his mother takes him from the countryside to the capital. One day, he meets Lacy Márity, a 21-year-old big boy from Budakeszi, who from then on not only goes to play football with him, but also answers his most secret questions. He becomes his friend. Istvánka then becomes more tolerant of the local children's digs and the often incomprehensible behaviour of the adults. But the 1956 revolution intervenes. Laci Márity takes the lead in the rebellion.

Final Report

A cardiologist is sent into retirement, but he feels at loss without his work. He returns to his home village to work as a general practitioner. This is the start of his ordeal: he's confronted with raw reality, which finally brings him to his knees. But music has the last word.

Love Till First Blood

Füge is studying at a high-school. He rarely visits his divorced parents. He establishes a successful music group with his friends. He falls in love with his class-mate, Ágota.

7 Television Commercials

7 Television Commercials is a collection of music videos from English alternative rock band Radiohead, covering the period from their The Bends (1995) and OK Computer (1997).

Faraway, So Close!

Damiel is now married to Marion, runs the pizzeria “Da Angelo” and the two have a child. The solitarily remaining angel Cassiel is more and more dissatisfied with his destiny as a mere observer of human life and finally decides to take the great leap. Taking the role of Karl Engel, he soon gets into a dubious milieu and finds himself as the assistant of the German-American Baker, who makes his money with shady arms deals and sends films east in exchange for weapons. Cassiel’s adventure turns into a “thriller” when he decides to put a stop to Baker’s game.

Ravine

The story revolves around Balint, a Hungarian obstetrician and soon-to-be father, who returns to his native village in north-eastern Romania to face the son he abandoned 17 years ago.

Megérdemlem

Two marriages, two generations, two crises, two solutions...

Fly Trap

From the fire in the school twelve years ago, Uncle Eu' rescued seven kids, among them his own daughter, Anita, who became mute. Uncle Eu' was taken by the police four years after the fire and he returned in a wheelchair. Now he is dying and according to his wish the seven youth stand guards in shifts at his bed.