The great Hungarian filmmaker Miklós Jancsó will be paid homage through a retrospective of three films at the ninth edition of Ceau, Cinema! Festival, which will take place during July 14th-17th in Timişoara. The program is held with the support of the Liszt Institute – the Hungarian Cultural Center from Bucharest.
The viewers will have the opportunity to see special releases, restored by the Hungarian Film Archive, of the three most famous feature-films of Miklós Jancsó: “The Confrontation” (1969), “Red Psalm” (1972) and “Electra, My Love” (1974). They are an informal trilogy of “political cinematic ballet shows”.
“In 2021, we celebrated 100 years from the birth of Miklós Jancsó, one of the most important and fascinating Hungarian directors. Due to pandemic restrictions, we couldn’t pay tribute to him back then. Therefore, we hold the retrospective this year. Famous for his political cinema, we thought of Miklós Jancsó as a natural choice for an edition that we wish to be an impulse to reflection on the theme of the surrounding crises. We are sure that the public will enjoy a unique cinematic experience, due to the singular form of the three films. We are glad that the Hungarian Cultural Center is supporting us with this program, which is the beginning of a lasting collaboration”, say the organizers of Ceau, Cinema! Festival.
“Jancsó Miklós is one of the most important global pioneers of the cinematic form, a prominent personality of the Hungarian film history. His productions from the 1960s are representative for the „Hungarian school”. In 1979, Jancsó Miklós received the Lifetime Achievement Award at Cannes, and in 1990 he was honored with the same award at the Venice Film Festival, then, in 1994, at the Feature Film Festival in Hungary (Filmszemle). Upon the Jancsó centenary, the National Film Institute from Hungary made a short video called „Hommage á Jancsó Miklós”, which brought together the most popular cuts from seven films of Jancsó, considered his most representative works. Out of these seven films, three are being screened now at Ceau, Cinema!”, says Kósa András László, the director of Liszt Institute.
Miklós Jancsó (1921-2014) is the author of a very personal cinema, with a predilection for sequence-plans and whose permanent theme is the meditation on history and power from the point of view of a communist disappointed by the ideology that he once believed in. The Hungarian director was selected six times in competition at Cannes Film Festival and three times in competition at Venice Film Festival.
“The Confrontation” (”Fényes szelek”, 1969) is the first color film of Miklós Jancsó. Placed in 1947, when the Communist Party had just taken over the power in Hungary, the film follows a debate, which risks to turn into a fight, between a group of communist students and another group of students from a Catholic seminary.
Placed in the 1890s in the Hungarian lowlands, “Red Psalm” (”Még kér a nép”, 1972) focuses on a harshly repressed uprising of peasants. The film brought Miklós Jancsó the Best Director Award at Cannes.
Also selected in competition at Cannes, “Electra, My Love” (”Szerelmem, Elektra”, 1974) follows the main character Electra who, several years after the death of her father, king Agamemnon, still feels resentment for the one who conspired with her mother to kill him.
Until the start of the 9th edition of Ceau, Cinema!, the warm-up screenings continue. Wednesday, May 18th, at 8 p.m., will be screened the animation “Where is Anne Frank?” (2021, d. Ari Folman), selected last year at Cannes and distributed in Romania by Independenţa Film. This event will be followed by other three special screenings – two in June and one in early July – as a part of the preview screenings of this year’s festival edition, which are meant to revive the recently opened Cinema Victoria from Elisabetin area in Timișoara and to activate the local community of cinema-goers.
More information is available on the festival website, ceaucinema.ro, as well as on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.
Ceau, Cinema! Festival is dedicated to European films and is organized by the Associations Pelicula Culturală and Marele Ecran.
Funded by Timișoara CityHall, through the Project Center
Main sponsor: Groupama Ensurance
Sponsors: Conceptual Lab by Theo Nissim, HELLA, Porsche Timişoara, Tazz
Main cultural partners: the German Cultural Center from Timişoara, the Polish Institute Bucharest, the Austrian Cultural Forum Bucharest, the Liszt Institute – the Hungarian Cultural Center Bucharest, the French Institute from Timișoara, the Czech Center Bucharest
Partners: Cinema Victoria, InLight Center, ”Cartea Călătoare” Foundation, ”Ceva de Spus” Association, ”Cetăţean de Traian” Association, Ibis Timisoara City Center, Faber, Banat National Museum, Animest, the German Consulate in Timişoara, Cinemazero Cultural Association, Timişoara la cutie, the House of Arts – the County Direction for Culture Timiş, Claudia Roşu, Balamuc – loc de joacă ş-altele, Auăleu, iaBilet, Hostel Cornel
Media partners: Kiss FM, All about Romanian Cinema (AaRC), Ziarul Metropolis