Eternal Winter is the latest Hungarian film to receive a prestigious award after winning one of the main prizes at the Unruly Unbreakable Cursed International Film Festival in Gdynia, Poland.
The film, based on Norbert Köbli’s script, directed by Attila Szász and produced by Szupermodern Studio Ltd., commemorates the hundreds of thousands of Hungarians deported to the Gulag and Gupvi forced-labor camp.
Subsequent to the Soviet occupation of Hungary in 1944, the film follows Irén, played by Marina Gera, an ethnic German and her small village that were forced to go to an Ukrainian labor camp to work in a coal mine under inhumane conditions. Irén is focused and determined to return to her home and her family. In the camp she meets and falls in love with another prisoner Rajmund, Sándor Csányi.
Eternal Winter follows some other recent Hungarian film successes. Son of Saul won various awards including the Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards in 2015. On Body and Soul bagged the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2017. Sunset won the FIPRESCI at the Venice International Film Festival.