Free screening and panel discussion!

A selection of the 1982 New York Film Festival, Time Stands Still begins in Budapest in 1956, as the father of two boys escapes to America. We then skip forward 10 years to find the boys at school trying to live down the fact that their father is “an enemy of the people.” Shot in an expressionistic manner—oddly angled shots, surreali lighting effects, elliptical editing—Péter Gothár’s superb second feature as director is a frightening indictment of life under a socialist regime, all the more so because it shows how even school life and adolescent love affairs can become totally permeated and perverted by political dishonesty.

Followed immediately by a panel discussion recent changes in Hungary with essayist Eszter Babarczy, arts curator György Szabó, and film director Mona Nicoară (Our School), moderated by Scott Foundas.

Creative Freedom Through Cinema: Romania and Hungary
Among the highlights of the festival this year is a special program addressing the important political and cultural policy changes that have been taking place in Romania and Hungary in the recent past. Entitled “Creative Freedom Through Cinema: Romania and Hungary” and curated by Corina Suteu and László Jakab Orsós, this program aims to offer a better understanding of the sociopolitical context in these two countries and to address the relationship between arts and politics. Special screenings of Sequences (Alexandru Tatos, Romania, 1982) and Time Stands Still (Peter Gothar, Hungary, 1982) will be followed by two panel conversations with Romanian, Hungarian and American artists and cultural critics. Participants include film director Mona Nicoara (Our School), visual artist Dan Perjovschi, and essayist Eszter Babarczy, with more participants to be announced soon.