16. BUSHO HUNGARIAN COMPETITORS 2020
16th Annual Budapest Short Film Festival starts 1st of September, and the hungarian films in the competition programme had again caused a bit of a headache to the pre-jury, as there were so many great hungarian shorts again, that it is really difficult to decide which ones make the cut. Those who doubt us say this is the advance of the home court, but to them we can only recommend the last sentence of the famous folk tale: Who does not beleive it, should go after it themselves! We will try to bring the appetite not only for the doubters, but for our supporters as well.
Let’s start with the animated programme, as we have already mentioned their Polish and Czech counterparts in the international recommendations, hungarian animations also has the bar set high, as we have received numerous award winning, great films. Winning the George Pal-Prize at last years Primanima Festival, Máté Horesnyis Jacques rampage (will be in the programme with the main prize winner czech Hide and seek), which depicts everyday life with scenes that are independent from each other. Its depicted in a monochrome world inspired by Jacques Tati. Also a winner at the last Primanima Festival, Symbiosys by Nadja Andresev, which has also won several awards at KAFF Animated Film Festival, and arrived to us as a french film, which proves the internationality dissected in the introduction our article on international films. Anna Szőllősis MOME thesis film, Helfer introduces a young woman struggling with anxiety and the help she gets through symbolic events. Also from MOME university we have Natalia Azevedo Andrades Thorns and Fishbones which mixes stop motion and 2D animation, showing 3 bored and abandoned children on imanigany adventures until one day they try to get out in the real world.
In the fiction films the pre-jury saw an overwhelming sweep by the University of Thearte and Film Arts. with seven films made by their students into the competition. Sándor Csoma’s Casting has won the main prize at Golden Eye Festival at Tbilisi, as well for the best cinematographer, Balázs István Balázs. It’s the story of 18 years old Julia, living in a poor minetown with her brother. ,,As We Are” by Fruzsina Roszik has recently been in competition at the FEST filmweek in Portugal, which is one of the most prestigeous student film festival of Europe. Absurd and dramatic at the same time, we stay introduces a difficult family situation that brings together five distant brothers.
A few returning filmmakers are in competition again, like Marcell Wrochna, who has been in our programme before with Hitchhiker. This time his film If Once… shows a complicated Father and Son relationship, who have never been very close to each other. Rozália Szeleczki was a prize winner in the past two years at our festival, last year she has won ,Best Hungarian Short Fiction” with Rozgonyiné, this year she is selected with Since she is with me, in which we see an eight year old girl and her rockstar father in Budapest of the ’80-s. Also a previous participant of our festival is Anna Gyimesi, who has been here with Fourty Years, this time she tells the story of psichologist Vera in The End, which according to the filmmaker is a break up in theory and also in practice. The director is one of few who also has a film in the panorama program this year, with the film Happy, the other one is Olivér Rudolf, who’s short film FonicaM-120 has gotten into the panorama programme, but Every Night When You Take the garbage out is selected into our competition. In this film a thirteen year old, lonely girl falls in love with the greasy haired rocker guy next door.
Benő Baranyi’s film Anja is inspired by true events, it has been in competition in Sarajevo this year and it’s about Levente, who is spending his medical residency at the maternity ward of a countryside hospital. His other film, Reptilian is also in the panorama programme. And then the situation gets elevated, as Gábor Holtai has already several films in the program. Second Round is in our competition, which was made with the last Huszárik-rogramme of NMHH, and in it a young couple struggles with having a child in the world of state regulated conception. We are always happy to see the freshest new talents, this time we have Péter Valcz and his first film The Step up, in which a young girl and a middle aged man apply for the same job, and when they arrive to the interview in the tallest building of the country, the elevator breaks. Delegated by ELTE University Andor Berényi’s Sunday shows Laci and his sister, who only meet their father on the weekends, and this time the Father’s new girlfriend comes with them to the beach. Simon Szabó and Albert Czomba has competed already five times at our festival before (Zsebzsötem, Let’s Roll, Wall, Before Lunch), this year they come with Man from the fire, in which a young fireman and his girlfriend want to become parents without success, but life offers a strange solution to their problem.
If you didn’t have any program for the first week of september, then we hope it’s not a dilemma anymore, and If you already had, than replanning is always an option. We welcome everyone!