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Politics are the enemy in Gábor Reisz’s Explanation for Everything, an ambitious, entertaining effort from the Hungarian filmmaker to address the crisis of divisiveness in his country. Filmed with little care for catering to audiences outside Hungary who may not grasp its political reference points––a welcome choice that lets viewers pick up on things as the film proceeds––Reisz gradually sets the scene for one small, key moment that snowballs into a national scandal. Starting out as an awkward comedy, the film builds itself up into one long, exasperated scream at the absurdity of how almost everything can be weaponized into political issues.

Split into chapters, Explanation for Everything looks at several days from the perspective of three interconnected characters. The first is Ábel (Gáspár Adonyi-Walsh), a high school senior studying for his exams when he realizes he’s in love with his classmate Janka (Lilla Kizlinger). After...

If we’ve learned anything from the last few years of polarized political discourse surrounding everything from gun control to gender identity, it’s that when somebody pulls out the “won’t somebody please think of the children” card, the children are rarely the first thing on their mind. Even as it plays out on a specifically Hungarian social landscape, the satire of Gábor Reisz’s astute, drily funny third feature “Explanation for Everything” — in which an underachieving high-schooler becomes a right-wing cause célèbre on the strength of some dicey tabloid reporting — resonates more widely. Escalatingly absurd but underpinned by a mordant plausibility throughout, this confidently imposing work is among the high points of this year’s Orizzonti sidebar at Venice.

Reisz scored a domestic hit, and made a strong impression on the international festival circuit, with his 2014 debut, the endearingly scruffy quarter-life crisis comedy “For Some Inexplicable Reason.” His...

Explanation for Everything, Hungarian director Gabor Reisz’s third feature (after For Some Inexplicable Reason and Bad Poems), is set very specifically in present-day Budapest.

The talky script, which revolves around an argument between a high-school student and his family over a remark made by a teacher during the student’s final oral exam, makes many references to events and people from Hungary’s history and current political scene — most of which, apart from the country’s neo-fascist Prime Minister Victor Orban, will be unfamiliar to viewers beyond Central Europe. And yet the core conflicts depicted here between generations, and especially between left- and right-wing citizens, will be immediately familiar to viewers everywhere, particularly in places like the United States, Brazil, Italy or Israel, where political polarization has become even more acute and rancorous. Much like some of the naturalistic, dialectical dramas from Romania, which this resembles, Reisz’s work...

Hungarian director’s third film explores the tensions of a polarised society.

Films Boutique has boarded international sales on Hungarian director Gábor Reisz’s Explanation For Everything which will world premiere in the Venice Film Festival’s Horizons section.

Written and directed by Reisz and co-written with Éva Schulze, Explanation For Everything is set during a summer in Budapest. High school student Abel is struggling to focus on his final exams, while coming to the realisation that he is hopelessly in love with his best friend Janka.

Explanation For Everything is one of 18 titles playing in Horizons. When announcing the Venice line-up yesterday,...

Impressively bleak animated Hungarian sci-fi feature White Plastic Sky imagines a grim dystopia a hundred years from now where, like in Soylent Green (1973), older people are harvested at age 50, turned into trees so that they can become food for the younger generation. Except in this movie, the high-tech cannibalism is no state secret waiting to be blurted out by Charlton Heston, but a fact of life universally accepted phlegmatically by all. It only becomes a problem for protagonist Stefan (Tamas Keresztes) when his wife Nora (Zsofia Szamosi) decides to undergo the “implantation” procedure at age 32, having lost the will to live since the death of their child.

Made using a striking blend of rotoscope-traced live actors and intricate CG-drawn background designs to build a richly detailed world, this could build a cult following off a warm reception in Berlin.

Rotoscoping is a technique that dates back to the earliest days...

The filmmaker's first feature, starring Ákos Orosz and Mari Nagy, will be presented at Connecting Cottbus's Work in Progress. A production by Filmfabriq and Fp Films sold by the Nfi World Sales. Shot last Summer, from 22 July to 14 August in Maglód, in the near suburb of Budapest, Eviction (Kilakoltatás), the first feature from Máté Fazekas, will participate in cocoWIP, the Work in Progress organised as part of Connecting Cottbus (which will take place online 4-6 November). Headlining the film are Ákos Orosz and Mari Nagy (recently recognised for her turns in Those Who Remained and Post Mortem). Also in the cast are Blanka Mészáros, Annamária Láng, István Znamenák, Kata Péter, András Pál, Géza Egger, Orsolya...

MaryAnn’s quick take… A quiet horror movie about grief and regret as spiritual possession, about rationalization and denial as immorality. We don’t tell ourselves stories that whisper, as this one does, The Nazis had help. We need to. I’m “biast” (pro): nothing

I’m “biast” (con): nothing

I have not read the source material

(what is this about? see my critic’s minifesto) women’s participation in this film

(learn more about this)

A small town in Soviet-occupied Hungary, August 1945. The war is finally over and life is getting back to normal. Or perhaps things will be even better: “a new world” is coming, the townspeople hope. This day is a happy one: Árpád (Bence Tasnádi) and Kisrózsi (Dóra Sztarenki) are getting married, and the groom’s father, István (Péter Rudolf), the town clerk and the most powerful man locally, is expansively generous: the whole town is invited,...

Golden Bear winner takes home five awards.

The 2018 Hungarian Film Awards were presented in Budapest this weekend, with Ildikó Enyedi’s On Body And Soul winning both best film and best director.

The Golden Bear-winner, which also earned a best foreign language film nomination at this year’s Oscars, won five awards in total.

It also took home best screenplay, best actress for Alexandra Borbély and best supporting actress for Réka Tenki.

The awards were handed out by the Hungarian Film Academy at the Vígszínház theatre in Budapest on 11 March.

The best actor award went to Péter Rudolf for his...