FELDOBOTT KO

Balazs has just graduated from high school and wants to enrol in the Higher Institute of Theater and Cinema. However, we are in the horrible 1950's and his father gets arrested by the political police. Balazs then begins to work as a real estate surveyor. He moves to the country along with Ilias, an exiled Greek partisan with whom he has become friends, and Irini, his wife, in order to construct a rural center. However, the peasant farmers are obligated to be taken to the city in compliance with the plans of forced collectivization. The women blame Ilias for this. Ilias tries to have the farmers returned to their village, but he receives only promises. When he returns to the village, he is beaten to death. On the other hand, Balazs earns praise for what he was doing and he is offered admittance to the university. However, he keeps on working. He gets attached to a community of gypsies with whom he gets along very well. He supervises the humble enforcement of a rule of public hygiene. Then he returns to Budapest, he is able to enrol in the theater school and submits as part of his entrance exams the photographs that he took in the course of his experiences in the country.

"Not even one episode from Feldobott ko happened like that in real life, but any episode could have happened like that. [...] Nowadays many people are rejecting auteur films because of their autobiographical characteristics. I do not believe in categories like that. There are good films and films that are not good. There are no sanctifying methods. The maturity of cinematographic art is based precisely on the fact that one can act in more than one way. In some ways, all good films are auteur films because they bear the mark of the artist's personality. On the other hand, if we choose films on the basis of who has written the screenplay, then not even Feldobott ko is an auteur film because it took threee people to write it. Ferenc Kosa was the dramatist and Sandor Csoori was the consultant." (Interview of Istvan Zsugan with Sandor Sara, "Filmvilag", 3/1969)

Director and director of photography: Sandor Sara.
Screenplay: Sandor Csoori, Ferenc Kosa, Sandor Sara.
Music: Andras Szollosy.
Cast and characters: Lajos Balazsovits (Balazs), Todor Todorov (Ilias), Nadyezhda Ranzheva Urini), Ferenc Némethy (Gonczi), Sandor Komives (zio Géza), Istvan Iglodi (Jancsi), Teri Horvath (zia Beke), Janos Gorbe (Mosolygo). Production company: MaFilm (Studio 3), Budapest.