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My Twentieth Century
Movie + 1 extra
Directed by Ildikó Enyedi • 1989 • Hungary
Please note that this film is not available to UK subscribersIldikó Enyedi’s award-winning debut is a whimsical, satirical allegory for the moral decay of the past hundred years, and a love letter to the magical early years of cinema itself. Born on th...
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Man of Iron
Movie + 2 extras
Directed by Andrzej Wajda • 1981 • Poland
One of many peaks in the long career of the Polish maestro, Man of Iron is a sequel to Wajda’s 1977 drama Man of Marble. Winkel (Marian Opania), a disgruntled radio reporter, is sent to Gdańsk to discredit Tomczyk (Jerzy Radziwiłowicz), one of the leader...
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Diary for My Father and Mother
Movie + 1 extra
Directed by Márta Mészáros • 1990 • Hungary
The devastating but hopeful conclusion to Márta Mészáros’s autobiographical Diary trilogy, which traces the life story of the orphan Juli (Zsuzsa Czinkóczi) through Hungary’s tumultuous post-war history. Diary for My Father and Mother sees our heroine ...
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Adelheid
Movie + 1 extra
Directed by František Vláčil • 1970 • Czechoslovakia
Mining intense drama from a troubled and still-controversial moment in Czech history, František Vláčil’s Adelheid shows how the war came home from the front lines. At the end of the Second World War, Czechoslovak lieutenant Viktor Chotovický (...
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The Kidnapping of the Sun and Moon
Movie + 2 extras
Directed by Sándor Reisenbüchler • 1968 • Hungary
Inspired by Carpathian folklore and based on the epic poem by Ferenc Juhász, this mesmerising animated short by the great Sándor Reisenbüchler imagines a world destroyed and then rebuilt. A fearsome, seven-headed dragon swallows the sun and moon,...
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Bread and Salt
Movie + 1 extra
Directed by Damian Kocur • 2022 • Poland
Damian Kocur’s feature debut confirms his reputation as one of Poland’s most promising filmmakers. Talented pianist Tymek (Tymoteusz Bies) returns to his provincial hometown during his vacation from the Warsaw Academy of Music, and quickly falls back in w...
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Spoor
Movie + 2 extras
Directed by Agnieszka Holland • 2017 • Poland
Two of Poland’s cultural titans join forces as veteran auteur Agnieszka Holland adapts Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk’s Drive Your Plough Over the Bones of the Dead into a propulsive eco-thriller. Agnieszka Mandat is magnetic as Duszejko, an animal ri...
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Confidence
Movie + 1 extra
Directed by István Szabó • 1980 • Hungary
Arguably the first mature masterpiece from one of Hungary’s greatest auteurs, Confidence is a perfectly controlled study in suspicion and longing. Set in a cowering Budapest in 1944, it follows two strangers forced to pose as a married couple in order t...
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Farewells
Movie + 2 extras
Directed by Wojciech Has • 1958 • Poland
Also known in English as Lidia Ate the Apple, Wojciech Has’s melancholic adaptation of Stanisław Dygat’s novel evokes the despair pervading Poland in the years before and after the Second World War. In 1939, bourgeois student Pawel (Tadeusz Janczar) rebel...
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Eroica
Movie + 2 extras
Directed by Andrzej Munk • 1958 • Poland
One of only three feature films completed by Andrzej Munk before his tragic early death in a car accident, Eroica is a scathing assault on the false pieties of national pride and a key film in the history of the Polish School. The film is structured as tw...
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We Never Die
Movie + 1 extra
Directed by Róbert Koltai • 1993 • Hungary
A verifiable cult classic in Hungary, Róbert Koltai’s We Never Die combines bittersweet nostalgia with lively humour and playful dialogue. Set in the socialist 1960s, the film concerns an introverted teenager whose life is turned upside down by a few da...
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Song of the Cornfields
Movie + 1 extra
Directed by István Szőts • 1948 • Hungary
A landmark film in Hungarian cinema history, István Szőts’s penultimate feature was banned for more than 30 years before being rehabilitated as a national treasure. Centring on a Hungarian soldier returning from the First World War who marries a woman he...
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My Way Home
Movie + 1 extra
Directed by Miklós Jancsó • 1965 • Hungary
In the final days of the Second World War, a young Hungarian soldier, Jóska, makes his way home through a landscape riddled with debris and destruction. After he is captured by the occupying Red Army, he forms a bond with the Russian soldier Kolya, desp...
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The Good Soldier Švejk
Movie + 1 extra
Directed by Karel Steklý • 1956 • Czechoslovakia
Of the many screen adaptations of Jaroslav Hašek’s beloved novel, this delightful farce is the most enduringly popular. Written and directed by the redoutable Karel Steklý and with Rudolf Hrušínský excelling in the titular role, The Good Soldier Š...
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Merry-Go-Round
Movie + 2 extras
Directed by Zoltán Fábri • 1956 • Hungary
Zoltán Fábri’s dizzying romance marked a turning point in post-war Hungarian cinema when it premiered at Cannes in 1956. Based on a novel by Imre Sarkadi, the film charts the travails of Mari (a star-making turn from Mari Törőcsik), a peasant girl betrot...
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Ants’ Nest
Movie + 1 extra
Directed by Zoltán Fábri • 1971 • Hungary
Zoltán Fábri’s wickedly allegorical “nunsploitation” classic is a coming-of-age tale, an anticlerical satire, and a political parable wrapped up into one. Adapted from Margit Kaffka’s 1917 novel of the same name, Ants’ Nest is set in convent where the im...
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Mattie the Goose-Boy
Movie + 1 extra
Directed by Attila Dargay • 1977 • Hungary
A classic of Hungarian animation from the legendary Pannónia studio, Attila Dargay’s charming take on one of the nation’s favourite folk myths doubles as a playful anti-authoritarian rebuke. Following a cunning young goose shepherd in his efforts to get...
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The Ballad of Piargy
Movie + 1 extra
Directed by Ivo Trajkov • 2022 • Slovakia
Ivo Trajkov’s exquisitely eerie blend of period drama and folk horror explores the dark depths of patriarchal cruelty and nationalist fervour. Told in a series of flashbacks, the film recounts the last days of the rural Slovak village of Piargy. The powe...
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The Promised Land
Movie + 1 extra
Directed by Andrzej Wajda • 1975 • Poland
Adapted from the classic novel by Nobel laureate Władysław Reymont, Andrzej Wajda’s The Promised Land is a stunning period epic about Poland’s painful transition to industrial modernity. In late nineteenth-century Łódź, three friends – one Polish, one Je...
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The Last Day of Summer
Movie + 1 extra
Directed by Tadeusz Konwicki • 1958 • Poland
Tadeusz Konwicki’s austere but beautiful examination of life in the aftermath of tragedy is one of the most exacting early masterpieces of the Polish Film School. Made with a crew of just five, with no artificial lighting and no sets, the film unfolds...
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Shivers
Movie + 1 extra
Directed by Wojciech Marczewski • 1981 • Poland
Wojciech Marczewski’s chilling, beguiling sophomore feature transports the classic coming-of-age tale to 1950s Poland. Following his father’s arrest, 13-year old Tomek (Tomasz Hudziec) is sent to a youth camp designed to indoctrinate future Communi...
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Fairy Garden
Movie + 1 extra
Directed by Gergő Somogyvári • 2023 • Hungary
Fanni is a 19-year-old trans woman kicked out by her family, Laci a 60-year-old homeless man. Together, they create their own domestic world – their “Fairy Garden” – in the woods outside Budapest. Shot over more than three years, Gergő Somogyvári’s t...