MOVIE NEWS – HBO Max has an unexpected gift for Hungarian film lovers: In celebration of Hungarian Film Day, starting April 30, for one full week, HBO will highlight a whole range of Hungarian-made content, from world-selling series (The Informer), festival-winning shorts (Forgotten Generation, Second Circle), recent blockbusters (Separate Pack, Love Slips In, Space Picnic), definitive documentaries (One for All, Divas) or even several films by one filmmaker (Simon Szabó’s films).

Available from 1 May, Kis Hajni’s Separate Village, one of the biggest critical successes of 2021, is one of the most successful film premieres in Hungary. When 12-year-old Niki learns that her father is in town after his release from prison, she disobeys her grandmother and meets him in secret. Tibor is forced to confront his past and the responsibilities of fatherhood.

Ákos Badits’s dramedy “Space Picnic” has also been added, in which the main characters (Máté Andrássy, Itala Békés) are joined by Benjamin Lengyel from “The Informer”!  Panna is a lonely, anti-social schoolgirl who one day is visited by a self-loathing alien who sends her signals into space. The boy from space tells Panna that the planet is doomed, so the two of them team up.

HBO Max also has a real variety of shorts, with Norbert Aracsi’s World War II short film The Forgotten Generation, available on Sunday. The film tells the story of four Hungarian soldiers in the last days of war-torn Hungary. The protagonist is a young boy who is conscripted at the end of 1944, when the Soviet army reaches Hungary.

In Gábor Holtai’s The Circle of the Other, in a world where childbirth is regulated by the state, a couple asks permission to have children. They have made it through the first round of the process – but have no idea what awaits them in the second round.

In addition, several of actor/director Simon Szabó’s films are finally available on legal platforms, including Before Lunch, Man on Fire and Paper Planes on HBO Max.

In Before Lunch (2016), a family prepares lunch in the suburbs of Budapest in 1944. A little girl notices some people being pushed in the street by gendarmes. The family tries to help with food, water and clothes, but not everyone approves of their actions.

In the short film Man on Fire (2018), a young firefighter and his wife want a baby. They try everything they can, but they don’t succeed. Fate presents the man with a strange choice and the question arises: how far will he go to have a child?

Also available for the first time on international streaming is the film Paper Planes. Seven independent stories. Fiction documentary style about adult children and young adults fighting their daily struggles while trying to survive and enjoy the moments. Pooped eggs trying to get by.

Simon Szabó’s multiple award-winning The Wall will also be available soon on HBO Max.

Source: HBO Max press release