János Zsombolyai

Queen: Hungarian Rhapsody - Live in Budapest '86

On 27th July 1986, British stadium rock band Queen broke new ground by playing for the first time in Hungary, a country which was still under a communist dictatorship behind the Iron Curtain.

On Death Row

Directed by János Zsombolyai

On Death Row

Directed by János Zsombolyai

Duty Free Marriage

Dini goes to Sweden illegally and abandons his fiancée, Mari. After several months a young Finnish businessman called Pekka arrives in Budapest, carrying a letter and package from Dini. The sympathetic Pekka is judged by the friends of Mari to be suitable for the task of a nominal marriage, by which Mari could get out legally to Dini.

The Witness

Hungary, 1950s. József Pelikán, who works as a dam keeper on the Danube, meets by chance Zoltán Dániel, an old friend whom he saved from death years before and who is now a powerful politician.

A Nice Neighbor

Hungarian-born Laszlo Szabo returned to his native country to play the part of Dibusz in this comedy. When the residents of a large old house learn that it is to be torn down and that they will be relocated elsewhere, an intense game gets underway. As is usual in such instances, the residents will be given new apartments commensurate in size with their old ones. Dibusz sees this as an opportunity to temporarily enlarge his "assigned" space in the condemned building. He wants to be reassigned to an apartment which is larger than his current bathless one-room space. He and a neighbor cooperate to break down the walls that separate their spaces from that of an old woman who just died after a brief tussle. Still not satisfied, he tries to marry one of two spinster women who live together but is rejected. In the course of the film, he has intense encounters of one sort or another with anyone who might be of help to him in his quest.

It's all Moonshine

Hungary in the 1930s. The world suddenly changes around the peaceful office-clerk and regular, average petit-burgeois Kornél Cassius. Friends and relatives turn up in his home, who soon establish themselves there and even take the upper hand. They continue to arrive in increasing numbers, and turn the well-known objects and patterns of relationships upside down.

A Happy New Year!

Three thirtysomething chemical scientists, Laci, Gyuri and Kati celebrate the success of their development program before New Year's Eve with drinking for several days. But the morning of New Year's Eve does not bring the expected recognition, because the nice, bald, old director is replaced by a young, bald, but disagreeable one. In a sodden atmosphere it becomes clear that everybody has an axe to grind in the informative discussions.

Do not Lean out of the Window

At the station of Almamellék the semaphore turns red unexpectedly and the conductor shows a stowaway - with no money nor ticket - off the train. The stowaway has to undergo a serious and long investigation that tries to uncover the reasons for his "deed". In the meantime he can watch, like a spectator in a movie-theatre, how Kerek József, the strutting stationmaster rules his ridiculous empire through office bureaucracy, indifference, servility and negligence.

Alarm Shot

The film discusses generational and adaptational problems. The child of a cadre revolts against the omnipotent paternal authority and his own generations' nihilist members.

The Kangaroo

Istvan Varju a.k.a. Kanya is a track driver. He drives alone on the roads and listens to the radio. We're In the middle of seventies, the radio broadcasts hungarian beat music. He is convinced that interesting and significant events in the life happen on the roads, so we should go, go and go in order not to miss something.

The Kangaroo

Istvan Varju a.k.a. Kanya is a track driver. He drives alone on the roads and listens to the radio. We're In the middle of seventies, the radio broadcasts hungarian beat music. He is convinced that interesting and significant events in the life happen on the roads, so we should go, go and go in order not to miss something.

The Kangaroo

Istvan Varju a.k.a. Kanya is a track driver. He drives alone on the roads and listens to the radio. We're In the middle of seventies, the radio broadcasts hungarian beat music. He is convinced that interesting and significant events in the life happen on the roads, so we should go, go and go in order not to miss something.

Makra

The events of the story take place in the outskirts of working class people in the early nineteen fifties. Makra, a skilled worker in a factory, suddenly comes to close quarters with everything around him because his environment condemns and ridicules him for protecting a woman when his drunk fellows were going to rape her after his bachelor party.

Dashing Girls

A musical farce about women in the canning factory. The pretty Brigitta tries to commit suicide, because Laci left her, pregnant, but her mates save her.

The Last Chance

The film is based on a true story. Jakus, managing director of a scooter-factory suddenly resigns, since he disagrees with his superiors in the ministry on several points. Disregarding the attacks of his family and friends, he returns to his original job and becomes a welder, which is not very easy because of his records.

Parallel Faces

This sensitive and ironic film points up two girl-faces: Vera is happy, but cold, while Borika is tired, but warm-hearted.

Bald Head for Bald Head

In this naturalistic satire enriched with burlesque, Boróka, the haircutting artist once cuts a hair so, that the customer has to be shaved bald. Sajtár Dezső wants to kill the barber, who feels to be a victim himself immediately. In his anguish he mixes up his apartment, his wife and everything in the uniform world of the block of flats and like a maniac, tries to find after his pursuer. They find each other at a neurological clinic.

Dead Landscape

This Hungarian film chronicles the slow deterioration in the life of Juli, a farmer's wife. As the countryside grows ever more deserted because people are moving to towns or large collective farms, she spends more and more time alone. Despite her best efforts to appreciate her situation, her despair grows. The loneliness is briefly interrupted when she and her husband take in an old woman and care for her, but the woman dies. Shortly after her son visits, she is killed in an accident which may have been a suicide. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Present Indicative

Mózes Imre, the quality inspector of a big factory in Budapest loses his job overnight because he did not obey the director's instructions and refused some bad products of the company. When he brings the case before a court his arguments are not really appreciated. The director, however, recognises that, to a certain extent, Mózes is right and lets him re-enter as a head of a smaller operational section.

In the Prime of Life

The film describes the general situation and conditions of the middle-aged intellectuals.

The Murderer is in the House

A murder has been committed in a block of flats in Pest. Almost all the dwellers of the building behave in a suspicious way at the beginning of the investigation, although it is their everyday lapses they try to hide. In spite of the janitor's unpleasant comments, light is gradually thrown upon the case.

Outbreak

The main character of this film reminiscent of political writing is Laci, the young and ambitious factory worker. He lives with his brother's family. After an unsuccessful attempt to escape from his native country and the prison sentence which follows it he gets employed by Pray, the progressive thinker, at a newly established computer centre. It is here that Laci learns to know Anna, the new-leftist university student, daughter of the general manager. Tóth, although he does not favour their relationship, does not oppose it either.

Love, Emilia

A 1970 film.

The Fatal Shot

Laci and the divorced Klári decide to commit suicide, since neither's parents give them shelter, they have no place to sleep, no decent job and no future. Béla, who lives on stealing cars, joins them. He has a gun. Based on a true story.

Forbidden Ground

The dramatically dense film takes place in workers' surrounding in the sixties. It raises the newspaper article serving as the basis for the short story to be a model: in a plastic factory fire breaks out causing enormous damages.

Clowns on the Wall

This film is based on the logic of the associations, telling the story of teenagers of the day. Three boys find shelter from a storm in a villa at Lake Balaton. When the owners suddenly appear, only two of them can escape. Kiki is stuck in the larder. Waiting for his release, he recalls different stories in his mind, memories and the images of his imagination are mingled.

Summer on the Hill

Komora, a young painter and his friends, Mari, a teacher, and the elderly doctor, Szabó, buy a barrack-building situated at the foot of the stone mine of Badacsony. Earlier, the place served as an internment camp. Now, they intend to establish a camp with workshop sessions for fine artists. Mari and the painter fall in love.

Hello, Vera

The family travels to Zebegény for their holiday, and the following day the seventeen-year-old Vera also leaves for Lake Balaton to pick peaches in a voluntary camp there. Her boyfriend, Gyuri, goes to a film shooting. Gyuri would like to make the best of the day in the absence of parents, but Vera refuses him. She becomes jealous at once, however, when she discovers Gyuri's previous girlfriend in the shooting team.