The Witness

directed by Péter Bacsó

Ferenc Kállai, Lajos Őze

***Not recommended for children under 12 years of age.***

The witness has become a symbol of the socialist dictatorship in recent decades. The witness was boxed for ten years after its production and was first screened in 1981 - in Cannes - and then shown in this country and in thirty-two other countries.

The filming, with its successive stops, cuts and twists, was a typical negotiation of power and art in the late 1960s. The original version is five minutes longer than the version that premiered and was finally distributed in '81. There is a darkroom scene with a reference to László Rajk, and a longer conversation in which the millennial stability of the church is contrasted with the newly born communist regime. This version did not yet include the tram scene, which was inserted at the end of the film in 1969 by the director on the orders of the censors.

Digital technology has now made it possible to reconstruct the original version on the basis of the only remaining uncensored print. The cut-outs, many of which were found in the original negative in Mafilm's warehouse, have been incorporated by the Film Lab and "polished" into the restored version known to all.

"The Witness is like Kafka, Orwell, Pinter and Hašek (Švejk, a brave soldier) teaming up... The way the nightmare of bureaucracy, mixed with the motifs of Big Brother, manifests itself from the state executive machine to the inept Joseph Pelikan is not humorous but sinister, elusively ambiguous" (Alex Keneas, Newsday Garden City, 14 July 1984).

(port.hu)

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SCREENING DATE:

Thursday 13 June at 18:00

Ticket price: 2,000 Ft

Tickets are not seated, reservations are on a first-come, first-served basis. Doors open approximately 5 minutes before the screening.

Tickets available:

1) On site every day between 15:00-21:00

Please collect your reserved tickets no later than 30 MINUTES BEFORE THE SCREENING, thank you!

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The film is provided by the National Film Institute Nonprofit Ltd.