An animated urban tabloidshort about late socialism in the Kádár era, based on interviews with passersby. Its title, which combines the words “report” and “portrait,” features exclusively talking heads and offers an overview of the living conditions, opinions, and plans of Budapest residents of different backgrounds and ages during the János Kádár era.
Year: 2026
“The Chair” by Daniel Szczechura is a brilliant animated political satire depicting the timeless mechanism of the struggle for power. In a monumental hall, a meeting is underway – one seat at the presidential table remains empty. The candidates, shown from a bird’s-eye view as abstract, moving figures, compete ruthlessly, using tricks and underhanded tactics to win the titular chair. The film, made using cutout animation techniques, suggestively employs graphic simplicity, irony, and distance.
Set during the first period of independence for Latvia (1918–1940), the film’s plot revolves around a shrewd business man Edgars Ceplis, who establishes a clay brick business with the aim of exporting and building on his already considerable wealth. At first a fantastic success he soon becomes aware that his empire is crumbling beneath him due to a contamination of the clay, which makes the bricks unstable. He narrowly escapes defeat, however, by manipulating those around him, successfully extracting himself from the business before anyone discovers that there is anything wrong and the company collapses under a new director.
The long and flamboyant career of the French filmmaker is depicted in Abel Gance: The Charm of Dynamite, a documentary created for the BBC by film historian and Abel Gance scholar Kevin Brownlow. A Blue Ribbon winner at the American Film Festival of 1976, this documentary, along with Brownlow’s history of silent film The Parade’s Gone By and his restoration of Gance’s 1927 Napoleon, was instrumental in bringing Gance’s cinematic genius to a new generation of film enthusiasts.
The porajmos, that is, the Roma holocaust, is an area of 20th century history that is still not fully explored. There are no accurate details on the number of victims and not a single Gypsy witness was called at the Nuremberg Trials. In 1981, this documentary by József Lakatos was one of the first to use the tools of motion pictures to draw attention to this devastating historical trauma. The film honours the forgotten dead through the input of a historian and the recording of accounts by survivors.
An in-depth look at the band during their first trip to China. George Michael and Andrew Ridgely tour China with their group WHAM! as the first Western band to tour the Communist country, beating out Queen for the privilege. Director Lindsay Anderson was the surprise choice to chronicle Wham!’s tour of Communist China, taking in performances in Hong Kong, Beijing and Canton for a two week period in the month of April, 1985.
Tommy has lost his job, his love and his life. He lives in a small apartment above the Trees Lounge, a bar which he frequents along with a few other regulars without lives. He gets a job driving an ice cream truck and ends up getting involved with the seventeen-year-old niece of his ex-girlfriend. This gets him into serious trouble with her father.
Steven Dyer, an executive working for a giant multinational drugs company, decides to report his employer for breaches of Common Market trading regulations. One night in Basle, Switzerland, he leaves his home to post a letter, the start of a nightmare journey that leads to terrible consequences for his life, his career and for his wife and children.