Tüzoltó utca 25 

11 novembre > SALA 2 ore 21.30

Hungary – 1973 – colore – 97’

CREDITS

Direction: István Szabó

Screenplay: István Szabó

Cinematography: Sándor Sára

Editing: János Rózsa 

Set design: József Romvári

Music: Zdenkó Tamássy 

Costumes: Erzsébet Mialkovszky

Cast: Lucyna Winnicka, Margit Makay, Károly Kovács, András Bálint, Rita Békés, Erzsi Pásztor, Ervin Csomák, Zoltán Zelk, Mari Szemes, Ági Margittay, Péter Müller, Iván Mándy, Erwin Geshonnek

Producer: Tibor Dimény 

Production: Mafilm, Studio Budapest

SYNOPSIS

On a hot summer night, the apartment buildings in Fireman’s Street are about to be torn down to make way for the new Budapest. Although dilapidated and close to demolition, No. 25 is not unoccupied. It is still inhabited by: an old watchmaker with two daughters, one living in America and the other having thrown herself off the top floor balcony into the courtyard; an exhausted seamstress who, with her husband seriously ill, admits to herself that she is waiting for him to die; Krista, a girl who pines in vain for Andris; the concierge, and some small shopkeepers. Each of these characters spends the night remembering, dreaming, suffering nightmares. The light of the summer morning reminds them that, just like dreams, the house they are tied to will soon be torn apart.

CRITICAL NOTE

“Tüzoltó utca 25 marks a clear change of direction in Szabó’s poetic discourse. After the three previous “novels”, built on a real and realistic “story” and on chronologically and progressively identified characters, according to the associative technique of describing their conscious and unconscious universe, after the three “novels” that thus preserve the backbones of the “genre”, that is the structure (of a story or of one or more parts) and the characters (the soul of the story), Szabó has taken a new direction both on an ideal and on a formal level.” (Bruno De Marchi, István Szabó, Il Castoro Cinema No. 37, January 1977).

AWARDS

1974 Hungarian Film Critics’ Award:  Best Cinematography to Sándor Sára,  Best Actress to Rita Békés

1974 Locarno FF: Golden Leopard for Best Film, Ecumenical Jury Prize

1974 Atlanta FF:  Best Foreign Language Film Award