A HALAL KILOVAGOLT PERZSIABOL
DEATH RODE OUT OF PERSIA
DIRECTOR: PUTYI HORVATH
HUNGARY 2004
90 MIN / 35MM, COLOR, OV w. engl. ST

Caligari: 10.04. / 6.00 pm
Alpha: 11.04. / 12.00 noon

DIRECTOR:
Putyi Horvath

SCREENPLAY:
Putyi Horvath
based on a novel by Peter Hajnoczy

CAMERA:
Sebestyen Kodolanyi

ART DIRECTOR:
Tamas Meretei

EDITOR:
Sebestyen Kodolanyi

MUSIC:
Laszlo Melis

PRODUCER:
Bela Tarr

CAST:
Laszlo Melis
Linda Verebes
Zoltan Schneider
Katalin Takacs

PRODUCTION:
TT Filmmuhely, Budapest
Tel.: 0036 - 30 / 494 35 21

PROVIDED BY:
Magyar Filmunio, Budapest
Tel.: 0036 - 1 / 351 77 60
Fax: 0036 - 1 / 352 67 34
e-mail: filmunio@filmunio.hu

An old man lies on his bed in his disorderly and gloomy apartment, a photograph of a young woman on the mirror above him. His need to get drunk is all he can think of. He ruminates over the poisonous effects of alcohol, but keeps on drinking. A writer, he hopes to be able to dash off a few “tipsy notes” if he goes out for more wine. He already has an idea for a story based on his own youth. It was summer. He went bathing at the lake and fell in love with the beautiful Krisztina in her polka-dot bikini. The film now starts to alternate between the deserted drinker’s den and the shimmering heat of summer. Krisztina even introduced him to her mother, a hat-maker who set great store by respectability. Knowing she would be unhappy to learn he worked in a steel mill, he served her up some lies about a professional background and university career. But other bad habits eventually soured his relationship with Krisztina. A stickler for propriety like her mother, she exploded every time she caught him secretly drinking or smoking. His living went down the drain, and all his friends left Hungary after the uprising of 1956. He took to his bed and cultivated his vices. Looking at the ominous sheet of white paper in front of him, he feels he might be able to get his story down on paper, and tells himself that all good writers enjoyed a drink. But the hero of this modern variation on Joseph Roth’s “Legend of the Holy Drinker” is incapable even of holding a pencil, and drifts off into a wild and delirious erotic fantasy.

PUTYI HORVATH
Born in 1953 in Budapest, Hungary.
Dr. Putyi Horvath is the author of dramas and novels, scriptwriter, actor and film director. In 1994, he played the main character in his feature film PRIVATHORVAT ES WOLFRAMBARAT, for which he also wrote the script. A HALAL KILOVAGOLT PERZSIABOL is based on the autobiographical short story of the same title by Peter Hajnoczy (1942-1981). The feature is the first production of TT Films, the company owned by director Bela Tarr, in whose film SATANTANGO / SATAN’S TANGO Horvath played the role of Petrina.

FILMOGRAFIE AS DIRECTOR (SELECTION):
1994 Privathorvat es Wolframbarat / Private Horvat and Friend Wolfram (Ko-Regie: Frigyes Gödrös)
1997 Semmit, semmiert / Nothing for Nothing
2000 Pauer – Hatvan / Pauer – Sixty
2004 A halal kilovagolt Perzsiabol / Death Rode out of Persia