The Hungarian filmmaker Dorka Vermes, whose first feature film “árni” was nominated for a queer lion prize at the Venice Film Festival 2023, develops his second effort, “half -empty places”, a film which is presented as a controversial and intimate portrait of a queer relationship in the context of the Hungary of Viktor Orbán.
The film, which won the Co -production development prize for Eurimages this week at the Sarajevo Film Festival, Cinelink Industry Strand, follows Noá, a thirty years independent but in difficulty as an illegal taxi driver. One night, she collects a young wealthy suburban woman, Juli, who is desperately trying to free herself from her dominant family.
The two women quickly fall in love, but a range of circumstances – from growing financial stress to societal pressure at the expectations of the controlling family of Juli – complicate their romance. “Place half -empty” asks how to find your place in a company that offers no room to be different.
Talk to Variety To Sarajevo, Vermes described the film as a “close -up of an intimate relationship” taken from its own personal experiences and its interest in “the subtle and daily gestures which normalize exclusion”.
“The Hungarian context is not only a backdrop, but a structured force: to shape choices, movement, speech,” she said. “It is not a film” on queerness “, but an investigation into the way space and politics shape the very conditions of love.”
Directed by Vermes and written by Sára Törley-Havas, “Place Half empty” is produced by Evelyn Balogh and Botond Lelkes for unplacement film produced in Budapest, which takes its name from the French sentence for “non-place”. Lelkes, who founded the company in 2022, said that the expression “represents our current situation”, the Hungarian filmmakers working in the places “between the two” and “non -existent”.
Lelkes launched the production outfit after the Hungarian government has controlled the University of theater and film arts in Budapest – known by its Hungarian acronym, SZFE – in the hands of the Loyalists of Orbán. This controversial decision sparked a movement among young filmmakers and artists who “wanted to continue the values and heritage of the old institution”, according to Balogh.
The lelkes and verms were one of the students who occupied university buildings and resist the takeover of the government. This, in turn, led to the creation of the Freeszfe Society, an association designed to support artistic freedom in a country where it is increasingly threatened. The association was the first financing organization to support “half -emptiness”, which the filmmakers plan to finance independently.
This is part of an increasing trend in Hungary, where criticisms claim that the influence of the repressive regime of Orbán has had an impact on recent films such as the first of Gábor Reisz “Explanation for Everhything” and “Lesson learned” by Bálint Szimler, who bowed to Locarno, have become festival eruptions despite their funding without government support.
Balogh attributes the determination of a generation of filmmakers who refuse to “complain about money” to strengthen this new wave of Magyar films. “The destruction of the institution and its values created a void such that the people who were there at the time felt the need for [respond]”She said.” To stay together, create, go out of the beaten track, try to find other ways [to make movies]. “”
Despite the heavy political context in which they launch their film, Lelkes insists that “half empty” is “not only the fight of the Hungarian people”, describing the film as an “absurd melodrama” stored with “interesting” characters and quirks, such as Juli’s family affairs raising chihuahuas. The long -standing mentor of Vermes, Béla Tarr, who was a creative producer during her beginnings, “árni” (photo), will join the filmmaker again, this time as an executive producer.
The days of the Cinelink industry in Sarajevo have marked the first time that the filmmakers presented “half -empty places” to an audience of the industry, and on the strength of its award -winning beginnings, Balogh considered the event as a stimulating success.
“We had a great chance to connect with producers, sales agents and all kinds of industry professionals who were interested in our history and who wanted to help us try to disentangle this situation in which we are,” she said. Despite the challenges they face, she added, the Hungarian filmmakers want to remind the world: “We are here.”
The Sarajevo Film Festival takes place from August 15 to 22.
