Hungary
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"Cholera Street has taken Turkey by storm, becoming one of the most popular films in Turkish motion picture history." - Turkish Daily News. Cholera Street is by far the most feverishly paced film in our 1999 program. The film sweeps us away to a somewhat unsound world to dwell among the inhabitants of Cholera Street, a promenade cluttered with different ethnic, cultural and religious backgrounds. Amidst this rundown district is the most unlikely of heroes.
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Resck camp isn't even marked on the map,'' muses Comrade Nagi as he threatens an elderly inmate. A hopeless situation for the internees in this prison. Save for one man's mission to escape from behind the Iron Curtain and broadcast to the world their existence. Gyala Molnar is detained by the police on New Years Eve, 1948. He is never seen again. Unknown to his family and friends, Molnar is locked away in a secluded labor camp outside of Budapest. By a twist of fate, Molnar's arresting officer has also been imprisoned.
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Let's be honest. Divorce is never easy. It's usually riddled with misfortunes, pain and violence. Ildiko Szabo's film Bitches follows the married life of three women, their marriages in somewhat of a state of disarray. The first has already left her husband. Upon his pleading, she returns only to have him hang himself in front of her. The second woman is about to leave her husband. In anger, he rapes her in front of the children. The third woman is about to find out about her husband's violent nature and his lack of discretion in front of the kids, as he pushes them through a glass door.
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Veering from dark humor to whimsical surrealism, from laconic portrait to wild whodunit.
The Investigator is brimming with surprises and invention. Tibor, a great hulking lump of stolidity, is a human rock working in the morgue. The ultimate loner, completely satisfied with his lot, he is also a total pragmatist. When extra money is needed, he finds a way. "I had to do it. I did it." What starts off as a dourly surreal black comedy suddenly becomes a detective story with every convention turned on its head and perhaps, the most unlikely investigator ever.
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?I don?t know what else God has in store for me, but before I die I want to write down what happened the day that Lajos visited me for the last time, and robbed me.?
So begins this richly textured tale by Hungary?s beloved author Sándor Márai (himself subject of last year?s Cinequest offering The Exile: Everything is Different), a film overflowing with beauty, emotion, mystery and intelligence.
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They?re the most loving, harmless elderly robbers you will ever meet.
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Iska longs for a place free of the poverty and pain she has known her entire life.
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Affluence, recklessness and power blend together in a bizarre and mesmerizing mystery.
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After a fatal confrontation with a mugger, Alida is given the rare opportunity to reclaim her life. The problem is: she has exactly one minute to do it. Prolific director Peter Timar is known for his ?out-there? ideas, and this dynamic battle between good and evil is a perfect addition to his repertoire.