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Orphan film image; two people on a motorbike wearing riding goggles

Orphan

Árva

Showcase

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Communist Hungary in the late 1950s. Conceived during the war and brought up by his mother, Andor (Bojtorján Barabas) is convinced his father will return one day. Instead, another man emerges to stake his claim to both mother and child. Berend (Grégory Gadebois) is a butcher and a gentile, and even worse, a divorcee. Appalled, Andor is determined to save his mother from this brute.

The latest film from Son of Saul director László Nemes reminds us that geat cinema is about the aesthetics of light, composition and camera movement. He builds Andor’s world from the inside out, through the child’s troubled eyes. But this acutely personal vision also grants us access to the wider history unfolding on the edge of the frame, which Andor barely comprehends: the fall out from the Holocaust, the crushing grip of the Communist state. Vivid, textured, and richly imagined, this exceptional film will stick with you.

 

Oscar Submission: Hungary

Director
Cast

Bojtorján Barabas, Andrea Waskovics, Grégory Gadebois, Sándor Soma

Credits
Country of Origin

Hungary/France/Germany/UK

Year

2025

Language

In Hungarian with English subtitles

Film Contact
18+

At International Village

19+

At Fifth Avenue

132 min
Drama Family Relations
Pioneer Pictures, Good Chaos, Twenty Twenty Vision, Lumen,

Book Tickets

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Credits & Director

Executive Producer

Yoav Rosenberg, Michael Kupsik, Klaudia Smieja-Rostworowska, Sipos Gábor, Rajna Gábor, Stalter Judit, J.D. Zacharias, Ori Eisen, Alice Labadie, Jean Labadie

Producer

Ildikó Kemény, Mike Goodridge, Alexander Rodnyansky, Szále Ferenc, Gregory Jankilevitsch, Alexander Bazarov, Juliette Schrameck, Thanassis Karathanos, Martin Hampel

Screenwriter

László Nemes, Clara Royer

Cinematography

Mátyás Erdély

Editor

Péter Politzer

Production Design

Márton Ágh

Original Music

Evgueni Galperine, Sacha Galperine

László Nemes headshot

László Nemes

Filmography: Son of Saul (2015); Sunset (2018)

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