A selection of students’ films from BBU and Sapientia University

17:00 – 18:20 CLUJ FILM WORKSHOPS / BBU Faculty of Theater and Film. With English subtitles

Midday. Animation film, directed by Dóra Babota-László, 4’
A past that comes alive during a card game: as the grandfather recalls his years as a shepherd in 1955, the burdens of childhood intertwine with a world of wolves and rural beliefs.

Little Darling. Short film, directed by Paula Condrat, 19’
A father-daughter drama by the river: amid deep-seated tensions, we explore whether the time spent together can offer redemption from the feeling of isolation.

Hi, Mom! Short film, directed by Tamás Kiss, 19’
Dani’s lonely night shift as a Bolt driver: after strangers pass through his car, only a phone call with his mother could offer him refuge, yet the lack of honesty stands in the way of a genuine connection.

Beatbox to the Beat. Documentary, directed by Mátyás Orbán, 15’
Underground hip-hop in Sângeorgiu de Mureș: a portrait of György „Felügyelő” Fodor and the vibrant subculture of the local Roma community.

Between Us. Short film, directed by Erika Pál, 10’
Two different truths from a breakup: through Kincső and Viktor’s parallel perspectives, we see how subjective pain reshapes the past and memory.

Kossuth said: shot in your head! Short film, directed by Zalán Siklósi, 13’
A chronicle of post-revolution emigration: the arduous new beginning of Hungarian freedom fighters forced to the Wild West, where, in the shadow of past grievances and traumas, the guns are once again drawn.

Discussion with the authors, moderated by Réka Erőss

20:00 – 21:20 CLUJ FILM WORKSHOPS / Exam films of the Department of Photography, Film and Media, Sapientia EMTE
With English subtitles

The Red-Haired Woman. Short film, directed by Dániel Pál – Dániel Szabó, 22’
The red-haired woman navigates the streets in a wheelchair. Everyone watches her, so she can never find any peace. When night falls, she has no choice but to approach strangers: she picks strong, likeable men to help her up the stairs and into the lift. Ideally, they wheel her all the way to her door and help her over the threshold. They make her bed. They help her take off her coat. They fasten her watch. If they are open to it, she asks for their phone number, in case they might be able to help her again sometime.

Gyuri., Directed by Henrietta Eröss – Róbert Pászka, 20’
Sanyi, a young documentary filmmaker, arrives in a remote Transylvanian village to shoot a series of interviews. But the subject he had planned gradually slips out of his hands, and he turns his camera increasingly toward Gyuri. From that point on, what he captures is no longer the film he came to make. Over the course of a single afternoon, and only in the moments he records himself, a fragile intimacy develops between the two. Neither of them gives a name to what comes to the surface, and in this village, it can never come to fruition.

The Mechanism of Collapse. Documentary, directed by Csaba Dénes, 17’
A Mechanism of Collapse is a free adaptation of the Hungarian folk ballad Kőmíves Kelemenné. Drawing on the various surviving versions of the ballad, the film attempts to reconstruct a possible story, placing myth alongside technical imagery to explore how the same human mechanisms continue to repeat themselves in the present. Through archival footage, Super 8 images, and animation, the film does not tell a single true story, but instead attempts to construct a possible reality from disparate fragments.

Discussion with the authors: Babota Dóra, Kis Tamás and Siklósi Zalán moderated by Réka Erőss.