The Hungarian National Film Institute has made a surprising decision. A Hungarian horror film will be entered in the Oscar International Films program!
Péter Bergendy‘s film “Post Mortem” will represent Hungary in the international film category of the 94th Academy Awards, the National Film Institute announced. Hungarian horror has so far won 13 awards at prestigious festivals.
The horror film directed by Péter Bergendy was premiered at the Warsaw International Film Festival last autumn and has since been invited to 26 festivals, including the world’s most prestigious horror film festivals, Sitges in Spain and FrightFest in London.
The film is set in the aftermath of the First World War and the devastation of the Spanish Flu in the winter of 1918. Tomás, a young cavalry photographer, takes the last photographs of the dead with their families. At the invitation of a ten-year-old girl, he travels to a small village where he finds himself with an unusual amount of work and an increasing number of supernatural phenomena. The ghosts have something to tell him, and he is determined to find out what they are after.
“Post Mortem” also uses digital visuals, features computer tricks that took 10 months to create under the direction of VFX supervisor Zoltán Benyó.
Dániel Hámori, master mask-maker, started creating special masks for the characters six months before the shooting, and during the shooting, all the main characters had stunt doubles, who performed the dangerous scenes under the supervision of stunt expert László Kósa. “Post Mortem”‘s stuntmen have also worked on American series and films such as “Game of Thrones” and “Avengers: Age of Ultron”.
The National Film Institute has sold the foreign distribution rights of “Post Mortem” to French, Italian, German, Polish, Austrian, Swiss, and Slovakian distributors in Europe. It has also been acquired by local distributors for South Korea, Southeast Asia – including Vietnam, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Malaysia – India, Latin America, the United States, and Canada, according to a statement from the NFI.
The Hungarian competition film stars Viktor Klem and Fruzsina Hais. Judit Schell, Zsolt Anger, Gabriella Hámori, Diána Magdolna Kiss, Andrea Ladányi and Gábor Reviczky also star in the film.
András Nagy was responsible for the cinematography, István Király for the editing, Gábor Balázs for the sound, Balázs Hujber for the sets, János Breckl for the costumes and Attila Pacsay for the music.
The screenplay was written by Piros Zánkay, the story is the work of director Péter Bergendy and creative producer Gábor Hellebrandt. This summer, the jury of the first Hungarian Film Awards honored the creators of “Post Mortem” in most of the categories – cinematography, editing, visuals, mask.
All in all, it’s hard to predict what the film will achieve at one of the world’s most prestigious film festivals, but it’s off to a good start with thirteen awards in the bag. In any case, we’re giving it the benefit of the doubt, and while we think it’s a brave move, it could also pay off that the Hungarian horror film to be in the Oscar running.
