Friday, 1 September

The main character of the Japanese short film My hometown, 19-year-old Teruko, lives with her grandmother and mother in an apartment building that is due for demolition. After graduating from high school, she starts working in the same grocery store as her mother, but soon moves to Tokyo to attend university. One day her long-lost father turns up. The encounter stirs the family’s emotions before the departure. The film’s director, Aoi Furukawa, will take part in an audience meeting on Friday 1 September at 8pm at the Uránia Room.

Coming to the CineFest Competition program from Cannes Directors’ Fortnight is the romantic drama Blackbird, Blackbird, Blackberry, a film that draws its artistic sensibility from the rich tradition of Georgian cinema. The film touches on pervasive themes of emancipation and the right to defy social norms with unusual lightness and humorous detachment. The film’s cinematographer, Ágnes Pákozdi, who is Hungarian but does not live in Hungary, is visiting Hungary for the CineFest screening and will take part in an audience meeting at 9pm on 1 September in the Pressburger Room.

Saturday 2 September

Jean-Marc Barr, an actor who played with implicit authenticity in films of all nationalities, became a global celebrity and the idol of a generation in 1988 with The Big Blue. Luc Besson’s film was the most successful film of the 1980s in his country – and it remains one of the most memorable French films of the period. Jean-Marc Barr, this year’s President of the CineFest jury and Ambassador of European Cinema, remains extremely active not only as an actor and director, but also as a photographer and a committed environmentalist. In his honor, Besson’s classic The Big Blue will be screened on Saturday 2 September at 5pm in the Uránia Room of the House of Arts. The Ambassador of European Cinema Award will be presented here before the screening. This screening is free of charge.

Ink, part of the CineDocs competition program, is a film about the history, past, present and possible future of tattooing, including Hungarian tattooing, exploring how tattooing has emerged from low culture to become an art form in its own right. The screening will take place on Saturday, 2 September at 6pm in the Zukor Hall with the participation of director Márta Kempf, cinematographer Kornél Papp, editor Anett Monok, producers Balázs Berta and György Kárpáti, and tattoo artists András Galler, István ‘James’ Gémes, Brigitta Kiss, Csaba Müllner, Zsolt Sárközi and Gábor Veres.

The story of the documentary Sound of Nomad: Korjo Arirang, shown in the K-Movie section of the Open Eye program, dates back to 1937, when Stalin deported nearly 200,000 Koreans from the Russian Far East to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Among them were the troupe of the Koryo Theatre in Vladivostok, who decided to protect and preserve their culture in their new homeland. On Saturday 2 September at 7pm in the Béke Room, director Kim Soyoung will answer questions from the audience after the film.

Sunday 3 September

Barnabás Tóth returns to CineFest after his Oscar-nominated film Those Who Remained. The director’s latest film, Master Game, is inspired by Stefan Zweig’s Chess Story, but the plot is set in 1956, on the last refugee train, creating a Hitchcockian tension. On Sunday 3 September at 6pm in the Pressburger Room, the film will be screened in the Competition Program in the presence of several of the film’s creators, including director Barnabás Tóth.

The main characters of Gloria Halász’s film Circus Siblings, which is part of the CineDocs Competition Program, are members of the extraordinary Hungarian Artists’ Class. They are given the opportunity to pursue international studies. Their journey, full of trials and unexpected turns, leads them to the Kiev Academy of Circus Arts. Through the relationship between the Hungarian students and their Ukrainian teachers, a bridge is built between the two cultures. On Sunday, 3 September at 6:30pm in the Zukor Room, the screening will be attended by director Gloria Halász, cinematographer Balázs Hatvani, producer Péter Fülöp, line producer Pop Geanina and sound designer Péter Balogh.

In the chaotic days of the 1989 revolution, a police station in Sibiu is attacked. The police captain, desperate to escape the siege, is captured by the army and charged with terrorism. Tudor Giurgiu has already been at CineFest with his film Why Me? and now he is presenting a powerful historical film in the Competition program, Libertate. On Sunday, 3 September at 9pm in the Pressburger Room, after the screening, director Tudor Giurgiu, actors Alex-Cornel Calangiu, Ionut Caras and Razvan Vicoveanu, and Hungarian producers József Berger and Réka Lemhényi will answer questions from the audience.

Wednesday, 6 September

In the Making Waves section of the Open Eye program, Over My Dead Body invites you into an apartment complex where all hell breaks loose. The film will be screened on Wednesday 6 September at 7pm at the Uránia, followed by a meet and greet with one of the cast, actor Wong You-nam. Wong You-nam, 39, has been a regular in films since 2002. He was seen in the first part of the hugely popular and critically acclaimed martial arts action film Ip Man alongside Donnie Yen, and in the spectacular sci-fi comedy The Midnight After, which premiered to European audiences in the prestigious Panorama program at the Berlin International Film Festival.

Thursday, 7 September

In A Light Never Goes Out (Making Waves/Open Eye), widow Mei Heung faces countless sleepless nights since the death of her husband Bill. One day she finds a key among the belongings Bill left behind, which leads her to her husband’s secret workshop where she meets Bill’s young apprentice, Leo. She learns from Leo that Bill had an unfulfilled last wish: to recreate a legendary neon sign. With Leo’s help, Mei Heung tries to fulfill the deceased’s last wish. The film will be screened on Thursday 7 September at 5pm at Uránia. The screening will be followed by an audience meeting with one of the film’s stars, 29-year-old Choi Cecilia. The actress, who has already enjoyed a fascinating and inspiring career, won the 26th Hong Kong Film Critics Association Award for her performance in Beyond the Dream a few years ago and was nominated for Best Actress at the 39th Hong Kong Film Awards for the role.

In the film Guilty Conscience (Open Eye/ Making Waves), the irresponsibility of the sharp-tongued lawyer Adrian Lam sentences the innocent Jolene Tsang to 17 years in prison. In his shame, Adrian turns to public service and becomes a defender of ordinary people. One day, new evidence comes to light that will allow Jolene’s case to be retried. The film will be screened on 7 September at 7:30pm at the Uránia Room, followed by an audience meeting. Two of the film’s stars, actress Yeung Renci and actor Lam Bowie, will be travelling from Hong Kong to attend the screening. Yeung Renci, 29, started her career in television before moving into films. In the film Guilty Conscience, she plays a lawyer and sees it as one of the most exciting challenges of her career so far.

Hungarian audiences can see Gábor Reisz’s latest film, Explanation for Everything, for the first time in the CineFest Open Eye section. The film stars high school student Ábel. His history exam turns into a nationwide scandal, and the differences of opinion divide his whole environment and even the country. The film will have its world premiere at the Venice International Film Festival, which runs in parallel with CineFest, but the filmmakers will accompany the film to Miskolc on Thursday 7 September at 9pm in the Pressburger Room with director Gábor Reisz, actors Gábor Adonyi-Walsh, István Znamenák, András Rusznák and Krisztina Urbanovits, and production manager Olivér Zoltán Szendrey-Nagy.

Friday, 8 September

The DOCompass documentary block this time focuses on the Ernő Kunt Visual Anthropology Studio, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. On Friday, 8 September, at 5 pm in the Béke Room, the documentary film Man Sometimes Becomes an Image – Fragments for the Portrait of Ernő Kunt will give us a better insight into the life of one of the first founding masters of Hungarian anthropology, and after the screening, director Gyula Gulyás will talk about the making of the film.

Yorgos Lanthimos’ latest star-packed sensation was shot in Hungary and comes to Miskolc straight from the Venice 2023 Competition program, which runs in parallel with CineFest, also in the competition section. The American Poor Things tells the incredible story of Bella Baxter (Emma Stone), brought back to life by the genius Dr. Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe). With the help of a gruff and debauched lawyer (Mark Ruffalo), Bella escapes from the self-righteous scientist to embark on a magical journey across continents. On Friday, 8 September at 6pm in the Pressburger Room, the Hungarian side of the production will be represented by executive producer Vivien Lászlóffy, co-producer Ildikó Kemény, art director Géza Kerti and assistant director Johanna Szalai.

In the film, In Broad Daylight, based on true events, a news agency’s team of investigative journalists are tipped off about abuse at a home for the disabled. To expose the inhumanities inside, their reporter goes undercover as the grandchild of one of the residents. The film will be screened at the Urania on 8 September at 7pm, with a Q&A session with actor Lam Bowie. Lam Bowie, 57, has appeared in television series and films since 1991, and has twice won the Best Actor Award in his country for his television roles. He is a very colorful character, having appeared in Hard Boiled (1992) alongside Chow Yun-Fat and Tony Leung Chiu-wai. The most influential action film of all time not only launched the Hollywood career of its director John Woo, but later inspired films such as The Matrix and John Wick. John Woo loved working with Lam Bowie so much that when the director returned to his homeland after two decades to make a two-part historical epic with a gigantic budget (The Crossing – 2014, The Crossing 2 – 2015), he asked him to join him again. The actor also recently appeared alongside Jackie Chan in Bleeding Steel (2017).

Gábor Einspach is a successful gallery owner and contemporary art collector, and one of the leading figures in the Budapest art world. When he learns that he is suffering from pancreatic cancer, he sees the disease not as a tragedy but as an opportunity for a complete new beginning. As he continues to undergo increasingly demanding treatments, he tries to redefine his own life, his true goals and his relationship with his entire environment. Asia Dér, co-director of the highly successful Story of My Mothers, follows Gábor’s daily life from the very beginning of his treatment in I Won’t Die, which will have its world premiere shortly after CineFest at an A-category festival. Dér delves deep into the mental and physical struggles of an extraordinary man and asks whether Gábor can fulfil his ambitions. On Friday, 8 September, at 9pm in the Zukor Room, the screening will be attended by director Asia Dér, editor Károly Szalai, sound engineer Rudolf Várhegyi, producers Noémi Veronika Szakonyi, Máté Vincze and Krisztina Meggyes.

Tamás Almási has won the Best Documentary Award at the Filmszemle six times, the Film Critics’ Prize five times, and has received numerous other awards, from the Béla Balázs Prize to the Kossuth Prize. In his honor, the director’s film Szorításban will be screened on Friday 8 September at 9pm in the Béke Room of the House of Arts. The screening is free of charge. On Saturday, at the closing gala of CineFest, Almási will receive the festival’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

Tickets for the films are now on sale at ticket.cinefest.hu.