Orphan
(Árva)

Budapest, 1957. In the aftermath of a quelled uprising against the ruling Communist party, a young Jewish boy named Andor and his mother are struggling to make ends meet. Both work at a local general store, living in fear of the regime’s violent reprisals against friends and coworkers involved in the failed revolution. When a menacing, brutish man appears in town, claiming to be Andor’s father, the boy is plunged into personal crisis as he’s forced to come to grips with a new and unwelcome family history.

Director László Nemes (Son of Saul) sets this tender, heartbreaking coming-of-age tale amid a violent historical backdrop, balancing the intimate and internal against the grand sweep of history. The struggles of Andor and his family mirror the tumultuous reckoning of the post-WWII world, as Orphan bears witness to the tyrannies of the period through the eyes of a child.

Screening in 35mm.

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