Freedom First – Hungary 1956 Film Festival

TIFF Bell Lightbox
350 King St. W.
Nov 17-20

Tickets can be purchased in advance for $5 by calling TIFF Box office 416-599-8433, or free at the door at 350 King St. W.

17 NOV, Thursday

12:00pm – Young Rebels

Profiling a band of teenage revolutionaries in Hungary who attempted to overthrow their Soviet occupiers in 1956. Included: interviews with the participants. Produced and directed by Susan M. Papp.

documentary, Canada, 2006, 45mins
followed by Q&A with Susan Papp
http://www.postmod.ca/pdf/Young_Rebels_Press_Kit.pdf

2:00pm – The Fifty Sixers

It started as one of the brightest moments in the history of the Cold War and ended as one of the darkest. It resulted in the largest group of immigrants ever accepted by Canada from one country at one time. It left an imprint on our land that will be felt for decades to come. This documentary is the story of 200,000 Hungarian refugees who needed a home, and a country that took in one-fifth of them. It is the story of one Canadian man, the Honorable J.W. Pickersgill, who became their champion and the story of Canada’s birth as a leader in the refugee movement.

documentary, Canada, 2006, 44mins

https://curio.ca/en/video/the-fifty-sixers-1093/

3:30pm – Freedom Flight – Szabadság különjárat

The true story of the first hijacking. Unarmed students fleeing Communism divert a domestic flight with an armed secret service agent on board to Germany. The hijackers of the HA-LIG flight were all sentenced to death in absentia by a Hungarian Military Court. None of them have spent any time in jail for it. They ended up in the U.S and lived productive lives.

Film preview: https://vimeo.com/190347993

TV movie, Hungary, 2013, 55mins
https://www.facebook.com/SzabadsagKulonjarat/posts/415274931901692

18 NOV, Friday

4:00pm – Revolution’s Orphans

Revolution’s Orphans is about a man who flees Hungary, with his daughter Clara, for Canada as the 1956 Hungarian Revolution happens. They feel regret for abandoning their homeland, until Clara’s uncle Janos arrives.

short, Canada, 1979, 27mins

5:00pm – Sunshine – A Napfény Íze

Sunshine is a 1999 historical drama film written by Israel Horovitz and István Szabó, directed and produced by Szabó. It follows three generations of a Jewish family (originally called Sonnenschein, a name that literally means “sunshine” in German, but later changed to Sors, meaning “fate” in Hungarian) during the changes in Hungary from the beginning of the 20th century to the period after the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. The central male protagonist of all three generations is portrayed by Ralph Fiennes. Although fictional, the film weaves events drawn from several real sources into the story. The Sunshine family’s liquor business was based on the Zwack family’s liquor brand Unicum.

feature, Canada-Hungary, 1999, 181mins
followed by Q&A with Robert Lantos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdJXlNgnQTk

9:00pm – An American Rhapsody

A young Hungarian girl struggles to find her place in the world when she’s reunited with her parents in the USA years after she was left behind during their flight from the communist country in the 1950s. The girl is named Suzanne, and until the age of six she was raised in her native Hungary by two foster parents she loved dearly. Then, the way she understands it at the time, she’s stolen away from them and put on an airplane to join her ”real” family in America.

feature, USA, 2001, 106mins
Watch Official Trailer

19 NOV, Saturday

10:00am – The Sun Street Boys – A Nap utcai fiúk

Some of the most symbolic moments of the 1956 Revolution in Hungary were the tooth-and-nail battles fought by the so-called ‘Pest Lads’ who dared to defy odds by taking on the panzers of one of the world’s superpowers. The story begins on October 23rd, 1956 and ends on November 4th of the same year. Juli is Totya’s girlfriend but also loves Gábor. Their love triangle will have to endure the trials and tribulations of these stirring times. A group of boys living in the outskirts of the capital are playing football in abandoned lot when Juli, a ticket inspector, brings news of protests breaking out in the city. Only Gábor accompanies her into town and together they become part of this historical event. At dawn, when the boys too come under fire from Soviet forces, they decide to join in the fight. Under Totya’s leadership, they grab some guns and build a barricade around a small cinema. With only guns and gasoline at their disposal, they stand their ground against the encroaching Soviet tanks.

feature, Hungary, 2007, 89mins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRp57hY4YTs

12:00pm – Daniel Takes a Train – Szerencsés Dániel

In 1956 two teenage boys, one an army deserter whose unit turned against the government when the Russians rolled in, the other an apolitical youth called Daniel who aims to follow his girlfriend and her family to the West, take one of the last, overcrowded trains from Budapest to Vienna during the brief period when emigration was allowed. The atmosphere of panic and moral dilemma is keenly sustained, it rattles along and is by turns amusing and heart stopping.

feature, Hungary, 1985, 87mins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3wVs3eL2ug

2:00pm – Love – Szerelem

The wife of a political prisoner tends to her mother-in-law and keeps from the old woman the truth about her son, whom she believes is in New York making a film.

feature, Hungary, 1971, 93mins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8xmNJ0omX4

4:00pm – The Ambassador to Bern – A berni követ

A fictional account of the 1958 attack against the Hungarian embassy in Bern. Based on a true story about the aftermath of the 1956 Hungarian revolution.

feature, Hungary, 2014, 76mins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZA263SyEaw

6:15pm – Young Rebels

Profiling a band of teenage revolutionaries in Hungary who attempted to overthrow their Soviet occupiers in 1956. Included: interviews with the participants. Produced and directed by Susan M. Papp.

documentary, Canada, 2006, 45mins
followed by Q&A with Susan Papp
http://www.postmod.ca/pdf/Young_Rebels_Press_Kit.pdf

7:50pm – The Fifty Sixers

It started as one of the brightest moments in the history of the Cold War and ended as one of the darkest. It resulted in the largest group of immigrants ever accepted by Canada from one country at one time. It left an imprint on our land that will be felt for decades to come. This documentary is the story of 200,000 Hungarian refugees who needed a home, and a country that took in one-fifth of them. It is the story of one Canadian man, the Honorable J.W. Pickersgill, who became their champion and the story of Canada’s birth as a leader in the refugee movement.

documentary, Canada, 2006, 44mins
followed by Q&A with Anna Porter
https://curio.ca/en/video/the-fifty-sixers-1093/

9:30pm – Angi Vera

At a compulsory political propaganda session at a hospital in communist Hungary in the fall of 1948 Vera Angi, a shy 18-year-old nursemaid, raises and courageously criticizes the hospital’s corruption and its neglect of the patients. Her criticism impresses the comrades, particularly as it legitimates their plans to get rid of some politically untrustworthy doctors. The fact that Vera is an orphan of working-class background is particularly useful—she fits the template for new cadres that the Communist Party is looking to promote. The Party needs people like Vera, and soon she is sent to a six-month long political education course for party functionaries.

feature, Hungary, 1979, 98mins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DocDLFWlOuw

20 NOV, Sunday

4:00pm – Love Film – Szerelmesfilm

Jancsi reminiscences about Kata his childhood friend in pre-WWII Budapest, They are separated as a result of WWII. Reunited as adults, they struggle with whether they will stay in each other’s lives.

feature, Hungary, 1970, 134mins
http://mandarchiv.hu/cikk/2321/Szerelmesfilm

6:30pm – The Face of the Revolution – In Search of a Budapest Girl

The November 10 issue of Paris Match in 1956 featured a report on the Hungarian revolution. The special coverage opened with a photograph taken on October 30, on Budapest’s Múzeum Boulevard. Forty-five years later, Hungarian historian Eszter Balázs and French journalist Phil Casoar decided to trace down the young couple seen in the picture. Who are they? Have they survived the revolution? If so, is it possible to find them after all these years? The film follows their search for answers.

documentary, Hungary, 2006, 71mins
followed by Q&A and performance by pianist János Balázs
http://www.docuart.hu/dokumentum-film/a-forradalom-arca-egy-pesti-lany-nyomaban/index.php

9:00pm – The Exam – A vizsga

1957, Budapest. A young defense officer’s loyalty is tested by his mentor in a highly deceptive spy game.

feature, Hungary, 2011, 90mins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vhsx11C-u5M