FILM TITLE

Focus Country - Hungary. Zoltán Fábri Retrospective. Körhinta/ Merry- Go- Round

18+

14th March 2026 | 11:00 AM
Stein Auditorium

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Image-Description
Country
Hungary
Year of release
1955
Genre

Drama
Language
Hungarian
Duration
91 mins
Director

Zoltán Fábri
WATCH TRAILER
Festival And Awards

1956 Cannes Film Festival: Competed for the Palme d'Or (Grand Prix).

1956 Cannes Film Festival (Reception): Despite not winning the top prize, it was highly acclaimed by critics such as François Truffaut and Lindsay Anderson.

2017 Cannes Film Festival: screened in the Cannes Classics section.

Cultural Significance: Selected as one of the "Budapest Twelve" (best Hungarian films) in 1968 and the "New Budapest Twelve" in 2000.

Synopsis

A lyrical rural melodrama that announced Hungarian cinema to the world: screened at Cannes and later fondly rediscovered by Cannes Classics, Körhinta is often remembered as Fábri’s early, lyric signature, tender, pictorial, and widely admired for bringing local peasant life to an international stage. 

In 1950s rural Hungary, Mari Pataki (Mari Törőcsik), the daughter of a farmer, falls in love with Máté Bíró (Imre Soós), a progressive, hardworking member of the local farming collective. However, Mari's father, István (Béla Barsi), intends to leave the collective to farm privately and plans to marry his daughter off to a wealthy landowner, Sándor Farkas (Ádám Szirtes), to "marry land to land". 

  • Cast

    Mari Törőcsik, Imre Soós, Ádám Szirtes, Béla Barsi, Manyi Kiss and Flóra Kádár. 

  • Producer
  • Screenplay

    Zoltán Fábri, László Nádasy (based on the short story Kútban/In the Well by Imre Sarkadi).

  • Cinematography

    Barnabás Hegyi

  • Editing
  • Sound
  • Music

    György Ránki