Hungary, 1963 - 1979
Length / Szindbád: 96 minutes
Length /
Csontváry: 112 minutes
Length / Short films: 86 minutes
Length / Special features: 75 minutes
2.0 Dual Mono / 2.0 Stereo LPCM (48k/24 bit)
Colour / Black and white
Original aspect ratios: 1.85:1 /
1:66:1 / 1.37:1
Language: Hungarian
Subtitles: English
Blu-Ray: BD50 x 2 / BD 25 x 1 / 1080p
Region ABC (Region Free)
Blu-Ray RRP: £39.99
Release Date: 28 July 2025
Second Run BD091
Blu-Ray |
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Zoltán Huszárik is one of the great unsung masters of international cinema. With an output that comprised just two features and a handful of remarkable short films, his unique and beautifully realised works set him apart from all other contemporary filmmakers, creating an intoxicating body of work unlike any other in modern cinema.
his special edition 3-disc Blu-ray box set contains his two features Szindbád and Csontváry, plus five of his acclaimed, rarely seen short works - including his most renowned film poem, Elégia - presented from new 4K restorations and released for the first time ever on Blu-ray. With this release, one of Hungary’s best-kept cinematic secrets finally has a chance to flourish.Szindbád (1971)
Considered a great ‘lost masterpiece’ of international cinema, Szindbád was chosen by Hungarian writers and filmmakers as one of the three best Hungarian films of all time. Based on the stories of surrealist writer Gyula Krúdy, this erotic elegy is a lush and sensuous depiction of the life, loves, and memories of hedonist and serial seducer Szindbád.
Csontváry (1979)
Huszárik's second and final feature is a dazzlingly inventive portrait of artist Tivadar Csontváry Kosztka. Now regarded as Hungary's greatest painter, the devout Csontváry was driven to madness by his passion to express the fullness of God's creation, whilst battling his own very human frailties. At once lyrical and surreal, the film is a vivid expression of the artists' impulse to create - and their facility to destroy.
Five short films (1963 - 1976)
A selection of Zoltan Huszárik's renowned short works, including his graduation film Groteszk (1963) and his professional directing debut, Elégia (1965), a veneration of the horse and their service to mankind. This experimental film poem introduced a distinctive new language into Hungarian cinema, and approach Huszárik continued to develop with his lyrical short works and sublimely poetic feature films throughout the 1970s. The disc also includes Capriccio (1969), Homage to Old Women (1971) and A Piacere (1976).
• Szindbád (1971) and Csontváry (1979) presented from new 4K restorations by the National Film Institute Hungary - Film Archive.
• Elégia (1965), Capriccio (1969), Homage to Old Women (Tisztelet az öregasszonyoknak, 1971) and A Piacere (1976) short films presented from 4K scans by the National Film Institute Hungary - Film Archive.
• Groteszk (1963) presented from an SD transfer by the National Film Institute Hungary - Film Archive.
• Szindbád - An appreciation: Filmmaker Peter Strickland on Huszárik's sumptuous vision.
• Who is Zoltán Huszárik?: A short documentary exploring the life and vision of the filmmaker and artist.
• The World of Krúdy and Huszárik: a discussion of writer Gyula Krúdy’s novels and Huszárik's film adaptation.
• Huszárik and contemporary music: An interview with composer Zoltán Jeney.
• Inside the Popular Science Film Studio: Archival newsreel on the special photographic techniques employed in Szindbád.
• Making Csontváry: Archival behind-the-scenes newsreel footage, including a rare on-set interview with Huszárik.
• Individual booklets with Szindbád and Csontváry featuring an expanded new esssay on Huszárik, his features and short films by producer and Hungarian cinema specialist Michael Brooke.
• New and improved English subtitle translations.
• World premieres on Blu-ray.
• Region-free Blu-rays (A/B/C).
“One of modern Hungarian cinema’s greatest visual poets”
Kinoblog
“Huszárik is one of the few directors to match Resnais’s flair for fragmenting time” Peter Cowie
SZINDBÁD
1972 Mannheim-Heidelberg International Film Festival /
Winner - Josef von Sternberg Award
1988 International Film Guide /
10 Best Hungarian Films of All Time
“One of the most beautiful films ever made” Graham Petrie
“A wildly sensuous reverie, justly regarded as one of the great movies of the Hungarian Sixties. Huszárik, who was essentially an experimental filmmaker, does a remarkable job developing a visual equivalent to Krúdy's sumptuous prose while evoking the writer's distinctive blend of sardonic nostalgia and fanciful magic realism” J. Hoberman, New York Review of Books
“Szindbád still stands alone in the context of Hungarian cinema as a stunning exercise in a visual style permeated by surrealism” Mira and A.J. Liehm
“A kaleidoscope for the senses ...its evocation of love and landscape gives it an universal appeal” Central Europe Review
“A beautiful film, alive with the earthen, gritty, sun-scorched textures of the 1960s and 1970s, painterly but not simply pretty, with a late-evening pilgrimage by candlelight that settles in your memory... Huszárik’s movie conjures up a densely imagined place and time”
Michael Atkinson, Sight and Sound
“So bright, brilliant, and unique, that it will change the way you think about cinema as an art and as a mode of expression” Cine Outsider
CSONTVÁRY
“A remarkable and monumental work” Film Tett, Hungary
“Huszárik’s fascinating, frequently brilliant, sometimes infuriating, drastically underseen second and final feature” Michael Brooke
“The only true discovery of the early 1970s was Zoltán Huszárik” Mira and A.J. Liehm
SHORT FILMS
“I would like to prevent death by making it understood. The fact that we die must be placed in a universal context. We must examine the relationship between personal existence and history, the intertwining of small and large destinies, the meeting of lives and tragedies in the projection of infinity” Zoltán Huszárik
