LEFT ON OUR OWN, 27min., Hungary, Drama/Art
Directed by Akos Kovacs
An elderly taxi driver, who happens to be a tireless storyteller, is a man of contradictions: a hopeless romantic and a crude observer of life who has lived through individual hardship and witnessed the despair of others. He doesn’t hold back while roaming the streets of Budapest: the route to the destination leads through the labyrinth of his own memories and emotions, which his words conjure. Friends and strangers, cheap décor, lonely buildings, a life-long correspondence that encapsulates a relationship, numbing melodies from an ancient music box all swirl and blend in this film’s poetic vision. Sensitive writing and emotional cinematography draws the attention to small details, to personal hopes and everyday tragedies. A hypnotic, haunting and tranquil soundtrack gives eerily gentle force to the old man’s tales.

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Get to know the filmmaker:

I’ve been something of a film aficionado all my life. I was 16 when I attended a so called ‘youth film club’ where all the classic Italian Cinecittá greats were screened, you know, Fellini, Pasolini, Antonioni, the works. Talk about love at first sight. I was thrilled, mesmerized, enchanted and, most of all, intellectually intrigued. My parents were shocked to learn I was not willing to follow the family tradition of attending law school. I respect such Hungarian filmmakers as George Cukor, István Szabó, Lajos Koltai or Vilmos Zsigmond who became Hollywood legends, and love the great Hungarian trailblazing directors who never got their much deserved international break, but are geniuses nonetheless, like Zoltán Huszárik or Károly Makk. They paved the way for aspiring filmmakers like myself. I’m also a big Tarkovski fan, as you might have guessed by our short film’s first scenes that are a dedicated hommage to the opening sequence of Stalker. I’m also an avid reader of literature, be it John Updike or Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I couldn’t write anything if not for the books that left their marks on me. Without my love for the great Czech author Bohumil Hrabal my taxi driver character surely couldn’t have been born.

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