The Witness

***Not recommended for children under 12.***

Over the past decades, The Witness has become a symbol of socialist dictatorship. After its completion, it was locked away in a box for ten years and was only screened for the first time in 1981, in Cannes, before being shown in Hungary and 32 other countries.

The filming—with its series of stoppages, cuts to certain scenes, and reshoots—was a typical example of the compromise between power and art in the late 1960s. The original version is five minutes longer than the version released in 1981 and ultimately distributed. It includes a dark cell scene referring to László Rajk, and a more extensive conversation in which the thousand-year stability of the church is contrasted with the newly born communist system. This version does not yet include the tram scene that closes the distributed version, which takes place several years later and was added to the end of the film in 1969 at the behest of the censors.

Based on the only surviving uncensored copy, digital technology has now made it possible to reconstruct the original version. The Filmlabor was able to insert the cut scenes—many of which were found in the Mafilm warehouse—into the film without any gaps and "shine a light" on the restored material of the version known to everyone.

"The witness is like Kafka, Orwell, Pinter, and Hašek (Švejk, a good soldier) combined... As the nightmare of bureaucracy, mixed with motifs from Big Brother, manifests itself in the form of the state's executive machinery directed at the clumsy József Pelikán, it is not humorous, but ominous and elusively ambiguous." (Alex Keneas, Newsday Garden City, July 14, 1984)

(port.hu)

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Ticket price: 2,700 Ft

Tickets are not assigned to specific seats; seating is on a first-come, first-served basis. Doors open approximately 5 minutes before the screening.

Tickets are available:

1) On site every day between 3:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m.

and on weekends between 1:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m.

2) Online:

https://cooltix.hu/event/694806fe410d33817c1bca81

Tickets purchased on the Cooltix website do not need to be exchanged at the box office.

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The film was provided by the National Film Institute Public Benefit Nonprofit Ltd.