Oscar® Submission from Hungary, ‘On Body and Soul’
Ildikó Enyedi’s On Body and Soul/ Testről és lélekről won the Golden Bear Award for Best Picture in Competition at the Berlinale as well as the Ecumenical and FIPRESCI juries’ prizes for best film in the Official Competition and the Berliner Morgenpost Readers’ Award.
Director Enyedi, who lives in both Hungary and Germany, began her career as a conceptual artist and made her premiere at Cannes in 1989 with My Twentieth Century, an marvelous film which won the festival’s Camera d’Or. She has released five feature films since, including On Body and Soul.
Before announcing the winner of the golden statuette, jury president Paul Verhoeven told the audience,
The jury fell in love with this movie not only because of its superior craftsmanship, but because it reminds us of one word we use too easily: compassion.
This is gorgeously told story of love precourses Innaratu’s current hit The Shape of Water. Both bring light and happiness to our very souls and allow us to feel, in respect to our own bodies and souls, as if we have been transported to paradise.
We wanted to present you a very simple film like a glass of water, Enyedi explained. It was risky, all of my team believed in it, but we couldn’t know if the audience would join us because this film is only approchable with a generous heart.
A slaughterhouse in Budapest is the setting of a strangely beautiful love story. No sooner does Mária start work as the new quality controller than the whispers begin. At lunch the young woman always chooses a table on her own in the sterile canteen where she sits in silence. She takes her job seriously and adheres strictly to the rules, deducting penalty points for every excessive ounce of fat. Hers is a world that consists of figures and data that have imprinted themselves on her memory since early childhood. This story of two people discovering the realm of emotions and physical desire, at first individually and then together, is tenderly told by director Ildikó Enyedi, but in a way that also exudes subtle humour. A film about the fears and inhibitions associated with opening up to others, and about how exhilarating it can be when you finally do.
More on Hungary
Speaking of Hungary and the Oscars, the Hungarian Film Fund put $5.4 million into Sunset the second feature from the Academy Award winning Son of Saul director László Nemes. That is 90% of the budget. France’s International Sales Agent (ISA for short), Film Distribution, will pay for the rest.
Hungary, a country that I understand is under a very far rightwing regime , now has won the Golden Bear for On Body and Soul in the Berlinale competition and, what some call a masterpiece, 1945, in the Panorama and was picked up for U.S. by Menemsha.
On Body and Soul is being repped internationally by Berlin-based ISA, Films Boutique, the smaller art-arm of Films Distribution which normally handles the larger more commercial arthouse films…but now Films Boutique has the film in Competition; it seems to have grown up under FD tutelage.
It has sold to Netflix for worldwide VOD, September Film Distribution for Benelux, Imovision for Brazil, Film Europe for Czech Republic and Slovakia, Ost for Paradise for Denmark, Cinemanse Oy for Finland, Le Pacte for France, Alamode Film for Germany, Strada for Greece and Cyprus, Golden Scene for Hong Kong, Mozinet for Hungary, Lev Cinema for Israel, Movies Inspired for Italy, Arthaus for Norway, Aurora for Poland, Bad Unicorn or Romania, Russian Report TV Agency for Russia, Karma Films for Spain, Folkets Bio for Sweden, Film Coopi for Switzerland, Flash Forward for Taiwan, Filmarti for Turkey, MUBI for UK, Arthouse Traffic for Ukraine.
