A Hungarian-Canadian-Slovenian co-production called ?The Maiden Danced to Death?, directed by Endre Hules, will show at this year?s festival, as will director József Sipos?s ?Adventure?.
?The Maiden Danced to Death? marks Hules?s debut as a film director. The Oscar-winning cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond helped make the film together with Bea Melkvi, Zsolt László and the Honvéd dance troupe.
The film is about a rivalry between two brothers, Steve, who returns to his native Hungary from Canada after 20 years, and Gyula, who stayed at home, working with the same dance company they started together years earlier and now married to Steve?s former sweetheart Mari.
"Leaving the place one grew up in -- whether it's a small town or the country, or even a religious or ideological community -- means severing ties to a certain degree. It changes us, and we view what we left behind from a different perspective. It also makes us strange and suspicious -- somewhat of a traitor -- in the eyes of those who stayed. This is universal," Hules says of the film.
?Adventure?, an adaptation of the Hungarian author Sándor Márai?s novel of the same name, will be screened four times at the festival which takes place on August 18-24.
The story promises to enthral audiences, according to the teaser on the film festival?s website.
?Budapest, 1940. The world outside may be embroiled in war and catastrophe, but for Professor Péter Kadar life could hardly be better. His career is flourishing and he has a beautiful young wife, Anna. His perfect life, however, disintegrates on the very day that he is named to head a well-known local clinic. Even while he was being celebrated by his colleagues, Kadar's own adopted son Zoltan, also a doctor, was preparing to run off with Anna. Too busy with the success of his career, he never harboured any suspicions. So now Kadar is at a crossroads. He makes a drastic bargain. The lives of all three will be changed forever.?
?Adventure? was shot in just 20 days and wound up at the end of January.
Sipos was the producer for another film adaptation of a Márai novel: ?Esther?s Inheritance?.
Both Sipos and Hules will attend the screenings of their films in Montreal.
