{"id":6537,"date":"2026-11-06T07:13:47","date_gmt":"2026-11-06T06:13:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/szineserzsebetvaros.hu\/nyolcvan-film-kerdez-ra-hihetunk-e-a-szemunknek\/"},"modified":"2026-11-06T07:13:51","modified_gmt":"2026-11-06T06:13:51","slug":"nyolcvan-film-kerdez-ra-hihetunk-e-a-szemunknek","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/szineserzsebetvaros.hu\/en\/nyolcvan-film-kerdez-ra-hihetunk-e-a-szemunknek\/","title":{"rendered":"Eighty films explore whether seeing is still believing"},"content":{"rendered":"
\nAn arrest on a city street is recorded on neighbours\u2019 mobile phones and police body cameras. The footage captures the same moment, yet the images do not necessarily tell the same story. Bill Morrison\u2019s Sawyer Avenue is built around this contradiction, which also leads to the central question of this year\u2019s Verzi\u00f3: what makes an image credible?<\/p>\n

The festival opens on 16 November under the motto \u201cSeeing is believing?\u201d The question carries particular weight in an era of AI-generated videos, deepfakes and manipulated photographs. A documentary is never a neutral imprint of what happened in front of the camera. The filmmaker chooses the viewpoint, the frame and the context in which an event reaches the audience.<\/p>\n

According to We Love Budapest\u2019s festival preview published on 4 November, this year\u2019s 80-film programme explores the ways cameras shape our understanding of reality. The theme also has a place in film history: the concept of \u201cdocumentary value\u201d was first used in relation to cinema in 1926.<\/p>\n

Radu Jude and Adrian Ciofl\u00e2nc\u0103\u2019s short film Shot\/Countershot places photographs taken by an American journalist in communist Romania alongside secret surveillance images of him from the Securitate archives. The same man and historical period appear through two radically different gazes.<\/p>\n

Film essayist Mark Cousins will attend the festival in person. Hungarian audiences will see four episodes from his 16-hour series The Story of Documentary Film for the first time. Drawing on more than a century of moving images, the series examines how filmmakers have tried to understand the world through the camera.<\/p>\n

Family stories become social portraits<\/h2>\n

The festival opens at Traf\u00f3 in Budapest on 16 November with Attila Poncz\u00f3k\u2019s Papa. Winner of the best documentary award at the Hungarian Film Festival, the film follows the director as he tries to find a home for his quick-tempered grandfather. Their personal situation reveals broader difficulties in Hungary\u2019s elderly care system and patriarchal patterns passed down through generations.<\/p>\n

Papa also forms part of this year\u2019s Roma strand. Verzi\u00f3 is devoting particular attention to films showing the diversity of Roma communities and to work by Roma filmmakers.<\/p>\n

Oliv\u00e9r M\u00e1rk T\u00f3th\u2019s It Was Beautiful This Way follows Marcell Szirmai, better known as rapper Pog\u00e1ny Indul\u00f3, over three years. Filming began well before his arena concerts, allowing the camera to capture both his dramatic rise and the price of sudden success. The production won the Golden Hejna\u0142 Award at the Krakow Film Festival. Previously released as a four-part HBO series, the story will be shown at Verzi\u00f3 in feature-length form.<\/p>\n

Bakpakk, the first documentary by journalist Kitti F\u0151di, follows 14 teenagers for nine months. Many had experienced years of exclusion and failure within the school system. The film observes what happens when they are finally given time, attention and trust.<\/p>\n

S\u00e1ra Tim\u00e1r\u2019s first feature-length documentary, Beneath Us It Beats, investigates the history of a Budapest villa where she spent part of her childhood. During Hungary\u2019s communist dictatorship, its cellar was used to detain defendants in show trials in secret. What begins as an exploration of family memory leads to a hidden site of historical repression.<\/p>\n

In M\u00e1t\u00e9 Bartha\u2019s If You Want to Be a Poet, Attila Bert\u00f3k works to preserve the literary legacy of his father, the award-winning Hungarian poet L\u00e1szl\u00f3 Bert\u00f3k, who died in 2020. At the same time, he must find his own place in the shadow of that inheritance. \u00c1kos K. Kov\u00e1cs\u2019s Theatre from Mud reunites Gy\u00f6rgy Herny\u00e1k and Frigyes Kov\u00e1cs, the two founders of the travelling Tanyasz\u00ednh\u00e1z theatre in Vojvodina, for the company\u2019s 45th anniversary.<\/p>\n

Award-winning films from around the world<\/h2>\n

The international selection includes films honoured at Cannes, Sundance and Tribeca. Imago, named best documentary at Cannes, follows a Chechen man returning from exile and building a house, using his story to explore identity and the search for home.<\/p>\n

Filmed over ten years, One in a Million follows a Syrian girl and her family from Syria to Germany and back again. The film won two awards at Sundance. Another Sundance prize-winner, To Hold the Mountains, portrays a mother and daughter fighting for their land in the mountains of Montenegro.<\/p>\n

Amazom\u00e1nia documents the reunion between a Brazilian rainforest community and a Western photographer who had photographed its members years earlier. Meanwhile in Namibia examines how the legacy of German colonial rule remains present in everyday life. Soldiers of Light looks at the role that online communities, wellness influencers and lifestyle gurus can play in the radicalisation of young people searching for direction.<\/p>\n

Maasja Ooms\u2019s Voices in My Head follows five people who hear voices. During an unusual course of therapy, psychiatrist Dirk Corstens speaks directly with those voices as well as with his patients. Festival audiences will also have an opportunity to meet Corstens.<\/p>\n

Blood and Mud investigates the links between coltan mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the global electronics industry. Nikolaus Geyrhalter\u2019s Melting follows the disappearance of snow and ice from Japan to Antarctica. Other films address subjects that remain difficult to discuss openly, including abortion, euthanasia, menopause, wartime sexual violence and changing ideas of masculinity.<\/p>\n

The closing film, Crocodile, tells the story of The Critics, a young filmmaking collective from Kaduna, Nigeria. The group began shooting science-fiction films with a single phone and homemade sets, teaching themselves visual effects along the way. Their work eventually attracted attention in Hollywood.<\/p>\n

Screenings designed for different needs<\/h2>\n

Many screenings will be accompanied by discussions with filmmakers, participants and experts. The programme also includes afternoon, cultural and musical events, along with an expanded student section. Beyond the cinemas, Centr\u00e1lis Gal\u00e9ria and the Budapest campus of CEU will serve as festival venues.<\/p>\n

Four films will have SDH subtitles, which identify sound effects and other audible information as well as dialogue. Selected screenings of Papa and Beneath Us It Beats will include Hungarian audio description.<\/p>\n

A relaxed screening will be held at the weekend, with dimmed lighting, lower volume and greater freedom of movement for viewers who may find a traditional cinema environment difficult. Childcare will also be available for parents of young children, with the involvement of ELTE\u2019s Faculty of Primary and Pre-School Education.<\/p>\n

The 23rd Verzi\u00f3 runs from 16 to 25 November in Budapest and in P\u00e9cs, Szeged, Szombathely, Veszpr\u00e9m, Miskolc, Debrecen, Kecskem\u00e9t and Szolnok. Sensitive content and accessible screenings will be clearly marked in the programme.<\/p>\n