The 18th Hong Kong Jewish Film Festival to be held from 4-12 November 2017 will prominently feature 1945, an award winning Hungarian film directed by Ferenc Török with the lead role played by Péter Rudolf.
In this astonishingly haunting film, adapted from a short story by Gabor T. Szanto, deep undercurrents run beneath the simple surface. On a sweltering August day in 1945, two Orthodox Jews’ arrival in a remote Hungarian village catalyzes an unwelcome reckoning with the recent past for the local inhabitants. The sober-looking strangers dressed in black arrive by train on a day already filled with tensions – the villagers are preparing for the wedding of the town clerk's son. As the two men walk silently behind a horse-drawn cart carrying their mysterious wooden-crated goods, their presence elicits a spate of rumors. 1945 stunningly captures a transitional moment in European history with one village’s actions reflecting the moral corrosion of an entire continent. Beautifully shot in black in white with a spare, melancholy score, this understated film quietly builds and ultimately packs an unexpected punch, a subtle and nuanced study in the collective guilt of postwar Hungary. To be shown in schools throughout Hong Kong
More about the Hong Kong Jewish Film Festival festival here:
https://www.hkjff.org/
