Programs

VERSION
(Verzió)
Hungarian experimental film, 1981, 51 min. - In Hungarian
director, script writer: Miklós Erdély
writer: Gyula Krúdy, Károly Eötvös
cinematographer: András Mész
editor: Ágnes Sarkadi

Featuring:
László Vikárius, László Rajk, Gusztáv Ádám, Ágnes Horváth, Gyula Pauer

Version is a film adaptation of the Tiszaeszlár blood libel based on texts by Gyula Krúdy and Károly Eötvös. The script about the crime and the subsequent trial was written using real documents, but this story emphasizes the many ways in which the imagination can construct and reconstruct real events.

In 1882, the Jews of Tiszaeszlár were suspected of committing the ritual murder of a Christian maid, Eszter Solymosi. The trial attracted great international attention, but the defense lawyers led by Károly Eötvös eventually managed to prove that the blood feud was a fabrication. The film tells this story based on the testimony of the crown witness, Móric Scharf, whose imagination and memory create different possible versions of the crime.

The film is a unique formal experiment, but it is also an important step in exploring the roots and nature of anti-Semitism.

The screening will be introduced by film- and music critic László Kolozsi (in Hungarian).


Guest: Mária Rigó, editor and Miklós Peternák, art historian