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
Bojtorján Barabas, Andrea Waskovics, Grégory Gadebois, Sándor Soma
Hungary/France/Germany/UK
2025
In Hungarian with English subtitles
At International Village
At Fifth Avenue
Book Tickets
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
Filmography: Son of Saul (2015); Sunset (2018)
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
The Company of Strangers
In this Canadian gem, seven elderly women find themselves stranded when their bus breaks down in the wilderness. With only their wits, memories and some roasted frogs' legs to sustain them, this remarkable group of strangers share their life stories.
Madonna: Truth or Dare
A year in the life of Madonna at the height of her fame, touring Blonde Ambition through 1990. There's concert footage, but the movie is also daringly truthful about life behind the scenes — not that Madonna is every really off-stage.
The Leopard
Lampedusa's elegiac account of a 19th century Sicilian aristocrat, Prince Salina, fading into history is one of the pinnacles of Italian cinema, an epic which influenced the tempo and gravitas of The Godfather, Age of Innocence and The Deer Hunter.
