Romania, Poland & Hungary
The third installment of Filmatique’s Foreign Language Oscar Submissions series features films from Romania, Poland, and Hungary.
Călin Peter Netzer's Golden Bear-winning Child's Pose is a riveting class commentary set in Romania; Małgorzata Szumowska and Michał Englert's Never Gonna Snow Again weaves an elliptical, magical-realist journey of a Ukrainian masseur and his misadventures within a well-to-do Polish gated community. Attila Till's Kills on Wheels features three wheelchair-bound assassins in a thrilling crime-comedy, promoting narratives of the differently-abled amid a media landscaping that is woefully lacking in their representation. Cristi Puiu's The Death of Mr. Lazarescu journeys into the liminal space between life and death, as a sickly widower is shuttled through Bucharest's labyrinthine hospital system, where he is consistently turned away.
In the 64 years since the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film has existed, only 28 nations have ever been represented onstage. Poland has won the prize once, for Paweł Pawlikowski's Ida (2014); Romania has never won, its first nomination occurring in 2021 with Alexander Nanau's Collective. Hungary has won the award twice—in 1981, for István Szabó’s Mephisto, and in 2015, for László Nemes’s Son of Saul.
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Child's Pose
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Cãlin Peter Netzer • Romania • 2013
Cornelia has earned a living. A successful architect in Bucharest, she is also estranged from her son Barbu, a state of affairs she ascribes to Barbu's girlfriend. Despite all the luxuries her success has afforded him, Barbu seemingly wants no...
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Kills on Wheels
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Attila Hun • 2017 • Hungary • A sleeper hit comedy performed by differently-abled actors.
Two residents in an assisted-living facility outside of Budapest find themselves recruited as accomplices for a Serbian crime lord.
A sleeper hit at the Hungarian box office, and performed ...
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Never Gonna Snow Again
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Małgorzata Szumowska & Michał Englert • Poland • 2020
Zhenia arrives from the East with barely a suitcase, a folding massage bed draped over his shoulder. Navigating a series of highway underpasses to the Polish immigration office, he declares his intention to stay. Zhenia may o...
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The Death of Mr. Lazarescu
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Cristi Puiu • 2015 • Romania • An old man is shuttled across Bucharest from one clinic to another.
Dante Remus Lazarescu is feeling dreadfully ill. In the search for medical attention, his lone ally is Mioara, a Virgil-like paramedic ushering him toward certain twilight.
Bone-d...
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Mephisto
István Szabó • Hungary • 1981 • The Academy Award winner for Best Foreign Language Film.
Germany, the early 1930s. The Reich exerts increasing power, and Hendrik Höfgen faces a choice: to leave, or to stay? The passionate but struggling stage actor abandons his political views, reaping the rewar...
