Two Hungarian Films awarded Best Film and Best Director at the Montreal Film Fest
The Montreal World Film Festival took place this year between 23rd of August and the 3rd of September. Congratulations are in order, given that Tamás Yvan Topolánszky’s biopic “Curtiz” won Best Film, while Attila Szász was named Best Director for his film “Eternal Winter” — a stark reminder about communist deportations.
Casablanca is easily one of the best-known films ever made. Directed by Mihály Kertész, a Hungarian national, also known as Michael Curtiz. He was the first Hungarian to receive an Oscar as ‘Best Director,’ in the latest film by Tamás Yvan Topolánszky’s called Curtiz about whom the film is based. Curtiz is portrayed by Ferenc Lengyel and Evelin Dobos plays the female lead.
The film Curtiz won first prize in the category Grand Prix des Amériques, or in Best Film – World Competition
Eternal Winter (Örök Tél), directed by Attila Szász is set at the end of the Second World War, when with the arrival of the “liberating” Soviet Army, Hungary soon had to face the terrors of Communism. This meant mass deportation of innocent civilians —mainly women, to the Ukraine where they were put to work in labour camps. A lot of men faced the same fate — mostly in the vast forests of Siberia.
For years, these people were forced to work in the mines in terribly harsh conditions. In many ways, these Soviet camps were similar to the infamous labour camps of the Nazis. Most of these Hungarians victims never managed to return to their homeland.
Eternal Winter tells the story of those women who were dragged away in trucks by the Soviets in the winter of 1944 to work in one of the forced labour camps in the Ukraine. The film describes the life that awaited them. Actress Marina Gera plays the lead role. She meets a seasoned male prisoner at the labour camp, portrayed by Hungarian actor Sándor Csányi, who shows her the life saving tricks needed in order to survive in the camp.
The film is also a tale of an unlikely romance between two captives in a Soviet labour camp and is based on a true story.
Source: Daily News Hungary
