Gyula Benkő

On the novel by Mór Jókai. The first half of the XVIII century. Several decades of life of a noble family Karpati.

A story about Lala, an eight years old magician.

This easy-to-take Hungarian drama is also known as Two Wishes. The prinicipal characters are a pair of juvenile delinquents, who may still be redeemable. The sullen duo is befriended by a kindly police inspector, who takes it upon himself to straighten out the boys. What follows cannot be termed surprsingly or innovative, though it is immensely satisfying. Of interest is the fact that a Communist-bloc film would admit to a delinquency problem in the so-called Worker's Paradise. Ket Vallomas was the Hungarian entry in the 1957 Cannes Film Festival.

In 1963 in Tihany, somebody addresses the writer Gábor Náday. He is reminded of a night drive in 1944 that saved his life. Painful memories start coming to Náday.

In 1585 the Turks and Vallons are looting the Látrány region.

Avary, himself a hustler, is jealous of his beautiful wife. He eavesdrops to catch Vilma, his wife, having supper with a neighbour on the terrace of their manor-house. He is about to shoot at the woman, but it is him who gets shot to death.

After the war, Gábor Erőss, released from its captivity, returns home. Abandoned by his love, he finds his house ruined. Nikita, his neighbour, and the roaming Levite come to his assistance by offering him both their friendship and a draught animal.

The penniless but handsome Count Zalavári chooses a rich girl from the countryside for her money. They don't get to marry because the butler catches him with the maid. He meets an American millionairess who gives him expensive jewelry as a gift. She is killed by her driver later that night. All suspicion falls on the Count.

Barbara is a forty-year-old woman of Polish origin living in Budapest. She is a biologist, a wife and a mother. The death of her woman friend opens her eyes to the fact that she is lonely, unable to find her place.

Modern and exciting short from a series of Hungarian noir films. Rácz Vali, playing the protagonist, was famous and beloved for her propensity to sing sad songs and recite lyrical poetry. She also played in movies, but only before 1945, as the cultural and social climate she represented didn't fit in the program of the post-war regime.

A World War II-style "war game" setting the wealthy customers against skilled mercenaries goes awry when the simulated war gets too real.

The loving couple of this grotesque parable parody of the Kádár-regime, Mária and István row to an uninhabited, idyllic island. Soon crazy tent-pitchers swarm to the island, led by an official representative of the regime.

In 1918, Fábián Bálint is forced to kill on the Italian front. At home, his sons drown the priest, the lover of their mother, in the river Kraszna, an action that drives her insane. Following his return home, Bálint becomes the liveried coachman of the baron.

Against the backdrop of the Adolph Eichmann trials, an elderly paraplegic pharmacist is summoned to the police station, where he believes that his hidden wartime guilt has caught up with him, unaware that it is all in fact an elaborate practical joke.

The old, sickly Demeter Lapussa is a tyrant in the family. He forces his granddaughter, the beautiful Henriette, to marry baron Hátszegi, although the girl loves the penniless Vámhidy Szilárd. The two lovers attempt to commit suicide, then are torn away from each other.

A priest who has been set free from prison recently joins a spy organization.

Two arts students, András and Viktor who are writing their thesis on detective stories, make up a story and keep nagging the famous film-director, who just came back from Hollywood, until he undertakes the job. At night they work on the film, in which two youths kill a director returning from the US. In the morning the director is found dead - a knife in his back.

The elite of political and business life of the country town gather to celebrate the namesday of Haudek László in the luxury villa. Everything begins just as usual, but now an incident disturbs the stag party.

Nelli, the icy, introverted farm girl, needs to find a husband following her father's death. She accepts the attentions of the noisy Takaró Sanyi, although she is more attracted to his silent and modest younger brother.

The only jacket owned by Rédey Lajos, a university student majoring in Italian language and literature, is pawned by his room-mate. The bracelet of Kitty, the daughter of general Gohrmann, which in the middle of a kiss during a lesson in Italian got accidentally unfastened, has been left in the pocket of the jacket. As a result of a still further incident, Rédey, - endeavouring to return the bracelet to Kitty - embarks upon getting the jacket back while wearing the Hungarian gala-suit owned by his landlady's elder brother. The station to which he finds his way while looking for the jacket is visited by the King of Italy, and he takes Lajos, dressed as he is in a Hungarian gala-suit, to be a Hungarian aristocrat, and Lajos must but receive His Majesty in Italian.

The elderly Mikola Menyhért, former imperial and royal master detective, talks about the great criminals of a bygone era on television. He considers Ignác Sztrasznov to be the uncrowned king of swindlers, the greatest swindler of the Monarchy. To describe him, suffice it to say that at the age of 23, he sold the entire Vérmező to a Bulgarian horticulturalist, swindled money from lords, industrialists, and businessmen while dressed in a smart military uniform, and did not spare even the higher circles of the church. Mikola's narration brings Strasznov's adventures to life.