A Rózsa énekei

Summary Autumn 1944. Yellow star, ghettos, Arrow Cross terror. The inhabitants of Hungary's capital, Budapest, await the tragic fulfilment of their fate with helpless resignation. However, above one of the city's villas, once a week in the evening the stars of hope sparkle, if only for a few minutes. This short time gives fresh heart to those hiding here and kindles hope in their tortured souls to live for another day. This mysterious power is none other than a beautiful song that can be heard at such times from the villa's tower room. Géza Halász, the villa's always jovial caretaker, believes no Jew has reason to fear while the owner of the voice, Imre Rose, the world-famous opera singer and a Jew himself, remains in Budapest and does not flee from the country in spite of his American, British, Swiss, Swedish and Vatican connections. Halász visits the singer every Friday to dine with him. After a while the marvellous, hope-inspiring concert starts, which is listened to by the hiding inhabitants of the house with enraptured faces through the villa's open dumb waiter. Already in the "palmy years of peacetime" Rose had competed with Csortos, the famous actor, for the title of "Budapest's Greatest Misanthrope". Thus it does not surprise anybody that the eccentric singer never, not even once, tries to make contact with his fellow Jews who took refuge in his house. And when Halász recounts that the singer swore within an hour of the Arrow Cross's seizing power that he would not utter a single word nor cross the threshold of his tower room until "Andrássy Avenue has been purged of this Arrow Cross scum", even the slightest suspicion about Rose's "invisibility" vanishes. Only a fourteen-year-old boy, Tommy, the caretaker's son, listens to the weekly song with curiosity combined with suspicion, and tries to find out about the secret of the tower room. As a result of the adolescent's persistent and undaunted inquiries, the opera singer's mystery is unveiled. Meanwhile, however, almost unnoticed, the events of the calamitous days, filled with excitement and cheerfulness, turn the boy into a truly adult man. The story of THE SONGS OF RÓZSA is based on true events. View more details

A Rózsa énekei

Directed : Andor Szilágyi

Written : Andor Szilágyi

Stars : Ildikó Bánsági Franco Castellano Viktor Baradlay David Zum

6.1

Details

Genres : Drama

Release date : Mar 19, 2003

Countries of origin : Italy Hungary

Official sites : Official site

Language : Hungarian

Filming locations : Budapest, Hungary

Production companies : Gam Film S.r.l. Focusfilm Kft. Grantfilm Ltd.

Summary Autumn 1944. Yellow star, ghettos, Arrow Cross terror. The inhabitants of Hungary's capital, Budapest, await the tragic fulfilment of their fate with helpless resignation. However, above one of the city's villas, once a week in the evening the stars of hope sparkle, if only for a few minutes. This short time gives fresh heart to those hiding here and kindles hope in their tortured souls to live for another day. This mysterious power is none other than a beautiful song that can be heard at such times from the villa's tower room. Géza Halász, the villa's always jovial caretaker, believes no Jew has reason to fear while the owner of the voice, Imre Rose, the world-famous opera singer and a Jew himself, remains in Budapest and does not flee from the country in spite of his American, British, Swiss, Swedish and Vatican connections. Halász visits the singer every Friday to dine with him. After a while the marvellous, hope-inspiring concert starts, which is listened to by the hiding inhabitants of the house with enraptured faces through the villa's open dumb waiter. Already in the "palmy years of peacetime" Rose had competed with Csortos, the famous actor, for the title of "Budapest's Greatest Misanthrope". Thus it does not surprise anybody that the eccentric singer never, not even once, tries to make contact with his fellow Jews who took refuge in his house. And when Halász recounts that the singer swore within an hour of the Arrow Cross's seizing power that he would not utter a single word nor cross the threshold of his tower room until "Andrássy Avenue has been purged of this Arrow Cross scum", even the slightest suspicion about Rose's "invisibility" vanishes. Only a fourteen-year-old boy, Tommy, the caretaker's son, listens to the weekly song with curiosity combined with suspicion, and tries to find out about the secret of the tower room. As a result of the adolescent's persistent and undaunted inquiries, the opera singer's mystery is unveiled. Meanwhile, however, almost unnoticed, the events of the calamitous days, filled with excitement and cheerfulness, turn the boy into a truly adult man. The story of THE SONGS OF RÓZSA is based on true events. View more details

Details

Genres : Drama

Release date : Mar 19, 2003

Countries of origin : Italy Hungary

Official sites : Official site

Language : Hungarian

Filming locations : Budapest, Hungary

Production companies : Gam Film S.r.l. Focusfilm Kft. Grantfilm Ltd.

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So Close to Home

So Close to Home

Maggie, a professional women in her 30s, is in the sleeping compartment of an overnight train to Sydney. Maggie is a workaholic who drowns her loneliness in a busy world. Unable to relax, she pulls out her laptop. But on this night, Maggie's lifestyle of extreme order and isolation is disrupted when a 14-year-old Albanian girl silently demands her seat and Maggie is forced to travel backwards. The next morning as Maggie anxiously prepares to meet her estranged mother, Ramona, she is disturbed to realize that the girl, Azra, is following her. To Ramona's incredulity, Maggie invites the stranger home and there Azra begins to reveal a deep secret. Ramona's world of quiet suburbia, where novelty letterboxes front the neat yards, is an unlikely scene for a clash of language, culture and family turmoil. But as Azra reveals she is a refugee from Kosovo, the fragile walls of suburban familiarity begin to crack. Her family shattered by war, all Azra has to hold on to is a hand-made postcard of the Opera House, which her mother sent from a detention center in Australia. Azra's past is glimpsed in a nightmarish memory, which is echoed by the childhood experience that Ramona later relays to her own daughter. These fragments within the story add a personally poetic layer to the underlying politics of exile and belonging. Both emotionally troubled, Maggie and Ramona struggle to deal with the stranger. Ramona is highly critical of Maggie, who in turn resents her mother's overbearing ways. Their relationship is turned on its head, when Azra'search leads to a surprising and ultimately moving discovery. In the current climate, where the issue of asylum seekers has polarized opinion, So Close To Home is a remarkable depiction of the ironies and challenges involved in the idea of strangers. What begins as a story of boundaries is soon transformed into an exploration of the bonds of family and in particular, motherhood.

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