The ELTE–NFI University Film Club screening and discussion series continues. We welcome university members from all ELTE faculties.
An ironic family saga about the turning points of 20th-century Hungarian history and a woman who tried to stay out of history with cheerful irony. Berta, a middle-aged journalist, cares for her 92-year-old mother. The elderly woman, who suffers from dementia, sometimes recognizes her daughter, sometimes not even herself, but she talks constantly. She recounts the family's hundred-year history, how they moved when the current regime put pressure on them: they tried to stay out of history. The film’s style is unique in that it elegantly blends contemporary documentary footage with fictional scenes.
Mom and Other Loonies in the Family is essentially a family saga. The film is a series of short episodes and anecdotes that recount with cheerful irony the trials and tribulations of ordinary people who witnessed history from below. The film lists the dramatic turning points of 20th-century Hungarian history, from Trianon through World War II to the 1956 revolution, but filtered through family memories, they take on a cheerful tone. The family, which bears its fate with unshakeable spirit and humor, moves twenty-seven times to escape the regimes that threaten them.
Date: 12 November 2025, 6 p.m.
Venue: ELTE University Library and Archives, community space (Budapest, V. Ferenciek tere 6.)
Director, screenwriter: Ibolya Fekete
Cinematographer: Francisco Gózon, Nyika Jancsó
Editor: Károly Szalay
Music: János Novák
Main roles: Eszter Ónodi, Danuta Szaflarska, Juli Básti, Tibor Gáspár, Bálint Bán, Kata Bartsch
Our guests in the post-screening discussion will be psychologist and grief counselor Renáta Liliána Révész and the film's director, Ibolya Fekete.
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rta41kov_Qg
Due to limited seating, advance registration is required: https://www.ajk.elte.hu/content/anyam-es-mas-futobolondok-a-csaladbol-fekete-ibolya-filmje-2015.e.1955
The organizers welcome any correspondence regarding the film club at eltenfi.filmklub@elte.hu.
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