Country: Hungary
Language: Hungarian

Presented at the Film Center as part of The Films of Márta Mészáros, a highlighted retrospective of the feminist screenwriter and director’s filmography, newly restored and on the big screen, from June 10—15, 2022.

About the film:

A defiant woman asserts her autonomy in the face of a disapproving society in Márta Mészáros’ complex look at the ways in which women’s bodies and minds are held in check by the strictures of patriarchy. Frequent Mészáros collaborator Lili Monori delivers a fearless performance as Juli, a young woman who begins a new job at a brick factory where she is immediately pursued by possessive coworker János (Jan Nowicki)—a relationship that grows complicated when he discovers that she is raising a son from a previous lover.

Mészáros’ background as a documentarian is evident in her feeling for the industrial landscapes of Northern Hungary and in the astonishing final scene in which the boundaries between actress and character are radically dissolved.

Images courtesy of Janus Films

About the filmmaker:

Márta Mészáros is a socialist and feminist filmmaker whose trailblazing, six-decade career broke barriers in cinema hierarchies, helped legitimize women’s artistic emancipation within the industry, alongside her contemporaries such as Agnès Varda and Věra Chytilová. Read more.

Gateway Film Center is pleased to present a selection of Mészáros’s most essential films.

MAJOR SUPPORT
Ohio Arts Council
Greater Columbus Arts Council
The Columbus Foundation
Campus Partners
National Endowment for the Arts

WITH HELP FROM
G&J Pepsi
WOSU Public Media