In what is likely the film world’s most prestigious competition, members of the American Academy of Films will select the five nominated feature films from the countries’ official Oscar nominations, which will be announced on January 24, 2023. Selected films can then compete for the Oscar for Best International Film. In March 2023 in Los Angeles. According to the rules of the American Film Academy, each country can nominate one film in this category among those that will be shown between January 1 and November 30, 2022 in that country.
Tibor Vonyody, Ksaba Kal and Akos Pesti, as well as NFI International Director Šaba Periński, film director Peter Bergendi, distribution specialist Andras Kalman and cinematographer Emil Novak, participated in the panel to decide on the official Hungarian nomination for the Academy Award. Blokád was in great competition, as the seven-member committee selected the work to be released on October 20 out of eighteen Hungarian films.
Blokád was made with an impressive cast: Zoltán Seress and Jr. In addition to Attila Vidnyánszky, Tibor Gaspar, Solt Weg and Ildiko Toth play the main roles. Norbert Copley wrote the script, Adam Tosser sat in the director’s chair.
According to screenwriter Norbert Copley, Blokád is an incredible but true story – about a divided nation and its unifying leader, who must confront the worst enemy of his life thus far: cancer.
Director Adam Tosser admits:
As Hungary experiences the final hours of the Soviet occupation, the film narrates, through an unexpectedly unfolding crisis and human drama, how society begins to learn that democracy is not only about freedom, but also about duties and responsibility.
The film is the first to show the circumstances of regime change, when Josef Antal finds himself facing the toughest test of his life just six months after his inauguration. Taxi drivers demonstrating in the streets against the huge increase in petrol prices, disillusioned with democracy, besieged the city of Budapest and then the whole country. The opposition stands by them and calls for a revolution. The President of the Republic, the press, and the public mood sympathize with them, and the unpopular government is left alone by unpopular measures. Josef Antal, a former revolutionary in 56, suddenly found himself on the other side of the barricade. Left alone, she is newly operated on in the ward.
The blockade is not just a chronicle of the four days of the taxi blockade: it also gives a glimpse into the struggles, the behind-the-scenes deals and the personal life of the prime minister who dealt with the crisis and fought for democracy. In the film, Mikhail Gorbachev and Helmut Kohl appear among the dominant politicians of the era.
Blokád is particularly notable because it is the first film to present the conditions of regime change and the Prime Minister of Hungary’s first democratically elected government, Josef Antal, on both a political and personal level.
– confirmed producer Tamas Lagos.
Watch the movie trailer:
