Central Europe - Melvelet's favourites

Set in Central Europe during World War II, a demented cremator believes cremation relieves earthly suffering and sets out to save the world.

A naive young man witnesses an escalation of violence in his small hometown following the arrival of a mysterious circus attraction.

A re-creation of the events surrounding the murder of a young girl by a twelve-year-old boy In Budapest. Explores the secrets of life and death through the eyes of a child.

A couple pick up a hitchhiker on the way to their yacht. The husband invites the young man to come along for their day's sailing. As the voyage progresses, the antagonism between the two men grows. A violent confrontation is inevitable.

After coming home from a Party gathering one night, a Czech official becomes convinced that he is about to be the subject of a political purge and tries to do damage control, while also dealing with his turbulent marriage.

Using almost no dialogue, the film follows a number of residents (both human and animal) of a small rural community in Hungary - an old man with hiccups, a shepherdess and her sheep, an old woman who may or may not be up to no good, some folk-singers at a wedding, etc. While most of the film is a series of vignettes, there is a sinister and often barely perceptible subplot involving murder.

On the run from pursuing soldiers, a man hides in a small European town.

This is a ballad about love, hate, and a search for a way out of loneliness. It is a dramatic story about the strange potter, Martin Lepis, nicknamed Dragon, who is suspected by the villagers as the cause of natural disasters. He loses his beloved, his home, and his freedom due to false accusations. After years he returns to his native village. Putting his own life to risk, he saves a herd of cattle from a forest fire in the hills. But not even this heroic deed helps him to win back the friendship of the locals.

Lemuel Gulliver (Lubomír Kostelka) has had a car accident and continues his journey across the unknown countryside on foot. On the road he finds a dead rabbit dressed like a man and takes a watch from its waistcoat breast pocket. The half-ruined house that he enters reminds Lemuel of his childhood and brings up a painful memory of a dearly loved girl Markéta who was drowned years ago. Gulliver finds himself in Balnibarbi, a country where he doesn't understand the laws and habits and so continually offends against public decency. It is a day when people are ordered to keep their mouths shut and they force their visitor to follow suit. He faces harsh interrogation and finds it difficult to explain that he is not the rabbit Oscar whose watch has been found in his possession.

The tragic medieval tale of a man of inhuman strength, fierce temper and a desire for noble knighthood. While on the run as a murderer, he finds new life as a knight, only to face disillusionment, the horrors of war and ugly human vices.

A volunteer fire department throws a party for their former boss with the whole town invited, but nothing goes as planned.

Eva has just got married to an older gentleman. She leaves him, and one day, she meets a young man, and they fall in love. Fate brings the husband together with the young lover that has taken Eva from him.

A small group of bourgeois guests head for a birthday party of a prominent figure. As they go through the woods and have a picnic, they are suddenly surrounded by a bunch of suspicious strangers.

A young woman is seduced and abandoned by a man who was invited to stay at his home by her father in a stormy night. Noticing that she is pregnant, the girl decides to leave home and start a new life.

Factory manager gets army reserves to boost female workers' morale. Local beauty spurns them for jazz pianist who seduces her. She leaves for Prague to find him but his parents are displeased when she arrives.

During a film course lead by Yvette Biro at the Hungarian Academy of Drama and film in 1995, the director students were shown a black-and-white photo taken by Lucien Herve in 1952, and they were given the task of writing a short film based on it. Three women are standing at the outskirts of a village, looking out of the picture in the same direction. This six-minute one-shot film shows what the Herve photo does not.

In a quiet, lonesome Polish city, a neglected 10 year old girl kidnaps a pampered toddler and pretends to be her mother.

An old man is recollecting all the women he met in his youth. An old woman wants them to commit suicide together but changes her mind. The little town has a doctor whose wife can not forget the old man, and the waiter who serves him his dinner doesn't know that Sinbad will soon court her.

A nondescript man is trapped in a sinister flat, where nothing seems to obey the laws of nature.

Tabloid life of a physicist; his work, his love life and his quest for the meaning beyond.

Oldrich "Fajolo" Fajták (Marián Bielik), a student who directs quasi-existentialist verbal abuse at his girlfriend Bela Blazejová (Jana Beláková), takes off to a formally volunteer summer work camp at a farm where he meets her grandfather.

A carpenter in the Fascist Slovak State is appointed "Aryan controller" of a Jewish widow's store.

During the Russian Civil War, the Red Army - aided by Hungarian Communists - and the White Army fight for control of the area surrounding the Volga.

When a schoolgirl is found murdered in the woods, a retiring detective tries to find her murderer.

Tonia goes out drinking. She wakes up in prison, not having a clue why she's there. She is tortured to encourage her to confess to a crime she is not aware of.