A taste of Hungarian 70mm

To pay tribute to the great Hungarian director Miklos Jancso, The Hungarian Information and Cultural Centre in cooperation with Federation of Film Societies of India (Northern Region) organises a retrospective of five of his films. 

The screenings will be inaugurated on 6 May by Gautam Kaul, Vice President, Federation of Film Societies of India with Diwaker Balakrishnan, AJK MCRC, Jamia Millia Islamia presiding as a chief guest.  The works of Jancsó life will be introduced by Anandana Kapur, film maker and critique.

The films that are going to be screened all throughout the event are - The Round Up (1965, 90min), The Red and The White (1967, 90 min), Agnus Dei (1970, 90 min), Red Psalm ( 1972, 84 min), Elektreia (1974, 75 min). 

Jancsó was one of Hungary’s iconic and most celebrated film directors who achieved international prominence from the mid-1960s onwards, with works including The Round Up, The Red and the White and Red Psalm. 

His films are characterised by visual stylization, elegantly choreographed shots, long takes, historical periods, rural settings, and a lack of psychoanalyzing. 

A frequent theme of his films is the abuse of power. His works are often allegorical commentaries on Hungary under Communism and the Soviet occupation, although some critics prefer to stress the universal dimensions of Jancsó's explorations. 

Towards the end of the 1960s and into 1970s, Jancsó's work became increasingly stylised and overtly symbolic with films like Agnus Dei (Égi bárány, 1970) and Elektreia (Szerelmem, Elektra).

From his later period his most famous films are - Hungarian Rhapsody, Allegro Barbaro (1978), The Tyarnt's Heart (1981), God Walks Backwards (1990), and The Lord's Lantern in Budapest that has led to a succession of six Pepe and Kapa films (the last made in 2006).

He received five nominations or the best director award at the Cannes Film Festival winning for Red Psalm in 1972. In 1973 he was awarded the prestigious Kossuth Prize in Hungary. He received awards for his life work in 1979 and 1990, at Cannes and Venice respectively.