Celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of István Szabó’s classic Father with this double bill, which pairs a new restoration with the director’s playful, musical short The Concert.

István Szabó is one of Hungarian cinema’s true originals, with a filmography that stretches back six decades. Celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of its release with this restoration of Father (1966), one of his most enduring titles. In the aftermath of the Second World War, young Takó constructs an elaborate fantasy of his late father: hero of the resistance, moral crusader, and political icon. As he enters adulthood, however, Takó must learn to move beyond the myth in order to take hold of his own life. Drawing on Szabó’s own wartime experiences, Father balances nostalgia, irony, and poetry in its portrayal of innocence lost, and was voted one of the greatest Hungarian films of all time by the nation’s critics. It is paired here with The Concert, the playful, musical short about an abandoned piano that helped launch Szabó’s career when it won at the Oberhausen Short Film Festival in 1963. A charming miniature reminiscent of Truffaut and Varda, it’s the perfect introduction to Szabó’s new wave sensibilities.