Late Season
Zoltán Fábri, 1966, 125 min
UK premiere of the new restoration

Introduced by Ehsan Khoshbakht

“Three decades before Roberto Benigni’s Life is Beautiful stirred controversy for approaching the Holocaust in a comic idiom, this disturbing and darkly funny film did likewise, to more profound and penetrating effect. Antal Páger gives a haunting performance as the ageing hotel manager driven by an ostensibly casual prank into confronting his own guilt for the fate of his Jewish employers during World War II. Director Zoltán Fábri, the most respected among the generation of Hungarian filmmakers who had emerged before the 1956 Uprising, crafts a film whose playful modernism underlines rather than undermining the darkness at its core; he summed up its spirit by declaring that “You can argue with the prosecutors, but there is no defence against conscience.”” – Alexander Jacoby

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Never on Sunday is a series of screenings of rare classics, archive masterpieces, obscure delights and forgotten gems carefully curated and introduced by Ehsan Khoshbakht and taking place the last Sunday of each month at Close-Up.