Enyedi’s The Story of My Wife premiered in Cannes

The audience at Cannes Film Festival celebrated Ildikó Enyedi’s film The Story of My Wife with applause that lasted for minutes.

On Wednesday evening, Enyedi‘s “The Story of My Wife” was screened to a packed house in the 2,300-seat Lumiere auditorium of the 74th Cannes Palais des Festivals. At the end of the screening, which was a tense affair, the audience stood for more than five minutes and applauded the filmmakers, who also stood up to give a warm welcome.

Ildikó Enyedi, fighting back tears and moved, thanked the actors and all those who had worked on the film, as well as the festival for having invited her. The audience gave a standing ovation to her and the actors of her film, Dutch Gijs Naber, French Louis Garrel, Italian Sergio Rubini, and Swiss Luna Wedler, as well as the Hungarian cast. The film’s French leading lady, Léa Seydoux, was unable to attend the premiere, having recently been diagnosed with the coronavirus and is in quarantine in Paris until her second negative test.

“Thank you so much for having me here with you for the very first screening of the film. We really, really wanted to make this film, we put our whole hearts into it. And now it’s on its way.”

Ildikó Enyedi‘s career has been dominated by Cannes, where her very first film, My 20th Century, which was screened in the Un certain regard selection, won the Golden Camera for Best First Feature in 1989. But this is the first time that a Hungarian director has been invited to the competition.

The next important date is Saturday when the Palme d’Or will be awarded. Both Ildikó Enyedi and Kornél Mundruczó will be in the running, competing in different sections, but still two highly-anticipated films by important Hungarian directors with a great track record. Mundruczó told Index in an exclusive interview whether the two Hungarian successes cancel each other out or strengthen each other:

“It reinforces. I don’t think we compete in any sense. The fact that people are so interested in Hungarian films is a huge thing. By the way, Hungary is present with four films, because we have Oliver Rudolf‘s diploma film “Fonica M-120” in the Cinéfondation section and Márta Mészáros‘ “Diary of My Children” in the Cannes Classic program of classic films.”

In other good news, on the 13th of July, Marcell Rév, who is the cinematographer for “The Story of My Wife”, was nominated for an Emmy Award for “Outstanding Cinematography for a Single-Camera Series (One Hour)” for an episode of the HBO series “Euphoria”. This is not the only success of the cameraman recently, as he was also selected for the Oscar jury.