Opium: diary of a madwoman

Original movie title:
ÓPIUM: EGY ELMEBETEG NÖ NAPLÓJA
Country:        
HUNGARY, GERMANY, USA , 2007., 109'
Director:
János Szász
Cast:
Ulrich Thomsen, Kirsti Stubø…

Awards:
Moscow International Film Festival 2007 – best actress (Kirsti Stubø)
Budapest Hungarian Film Week 2007
best direction, cinematography and sound
Gene Moskowitz prize
Porto FANTASPORTO 2008 – best feature film's Manoel de Oliviera award

Summary:

The beggining of the 20th century, Hungarian province. Young Gizzella is a mental patient and lives in an asylum since young adulthood and her mother's death. She is haunted by extraodinary obsessions, deeply convinced in power of Sun light and sexual corruption. With her beauty and even more with her unusual hobby of writing her obsessive thoughts, she attracts the doctor. Sexual and creative energy bursts between the two of them, him with his own selfish project and her with bursts of emotions that unfortunately don't help her with her disease...

Biography

János Szász was born in Budapest in 1958. He studied drama and stage direction at the Academy of Theater and Film Arts, and spent four important years at the National Theater Budapest. For the stage, he directed ‘Ghosts’ by Henrik Ibsen and ’A Streetcar Named Desire’ by Tennessee Williams. His long feature films are: ‘Szédülés’ (1990), ‘Woyzeck’ (1994) and ‘Witman Fiúk’ (1997). Szász also directed a documentary ‘A Holocaust Szemei’ (2000) (‘The children of the holocaust’) for the Shoa Foundation and Steven Spielberg.

12.07.,SATURDAY, 23.30, BARGE ON DANUBE

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