Budapest, film festival’s ‘city in focus’

TRADITION REVIVED: Cities such as Paris, Prague, Kyoto, Melbourne, Berlin and Lisbon had been featured in the Taipei Film Festival before the city section was removed

The Hungarian capital, Budapest, was on Friday announced to be Taipei Film Festival’s “city in focus” this year, with 20 films to be screened as a “condensed history” of Hungary’s cinematic scene, the organizers said.

The event’s organizers; the Taipei City government, Taipei Culture Foundation and Taipei Department of Cultural Affairs; said that the film festival’s “themed city” programming is returning this year.

The concept was dropped in 2016 when the festival was revamped.

Among the 20 films to be screened are four newer films, including Semmelweis, Hungary’s biggest box office hit in the past five years, which tells the story of Ignaz Semmelweis, a physician who discovered the cause of puerperal fever and introduced antisepsis into medical practice in the 19th century.

Another is Katalin Moldovai’s feature debut Without Air which takes on the conservative Hungarian government in her depiction of a high-school teacher accused of promoting homosexual values to her students.

Sixteen New Wave films that reflect life under the authoritarian socialist regime during the Cold War, including films made by the Balazs Bela Studio from the 1960s to 1980s, are scheduled to be screened, the organizers said.

Hungarian director Bela Tarr was named this year’s “Filmmaker in Focus,” with his first two feature films — Family Nest (1979) and The Outsider (1982) — and his 2011 film The Turin Horse to be screened during the festival, the organizers said.

The Outsider is one of only two Tarr films in color and the first to hit the big screen in Taiwan 20 years ago, while The Turin Horse is the last work he directed before he announced his retirement from directing feature-length films.

The organizers said they would screen the digitally restored versions of Family Nest and The Outsider during the festival.

Themed cities first became a part of the film festival’s programming in its fourth year in 2002, with Paris and Prague being featured that year, followed by Kyoto and Melbourne in 2003.

Other featured cities included Berlin, Stockholm, Warsaw and Lisbon. In 2010 the festival featured Brazil. The city/country feature was dropped from the program in 2016.

This year’s festival is to run from June 21 to July 2. The Taipei Film Awards coinciding with the festival are to be held on July 6.

No information regarding ticket sales has been announced.