Sudden fame and addiction, teenagers pushed to the margins of the school system, the maze of elderly care, the hidden past of a Budapest villa, the unique community surrounding a Hungarian-language theatre in Vojvodina, and a son struggling with the legacy of a celebrated poet: these are the stories featured in the Hungarian Competition of the 23rd Verzió. The six films take us into very different worlds, yet repeatedly return to the same question: how deeply are we shaped by the family, social and historical legacies we inherit, and how can we find our own path among them?
One distinctive feature of this year’s Hungarian Competition is the number of filmmakers making their feature-length documentary debuts after coming to film from journalism, photography or producing. The selection ranges from classic observational documentary and personal investigations into family history to a music portrait and a film built around experimental visual language. Several of the projects were years in the making, and some have already proved themselves at prestigious international development programmes and festivals.
“Personal stories have a particularly strong presence in this year’s Hungarian films. The filmmakers begin with their own families and communities, or with the life of a protagonist they have followed over a long period of time, but the stories reach far beyond the individual. We see how a deeply personal story can expand into something of shared concern. These films reveal how education, cultural memory and the machinery of success operate around us, while also asking what individuals can do with circumstances they did not choose,” says Enikő Gyureskó, Festival Director of Verzió.
From Family History to the Maze of Elderly Care
Attila Ponczók’s feature-length directorial debut Papa begins with a personal family dilemma: a new home has to be found for the director’s hot-tempered grandfather. Shot over four years, the film gradually opens onto the Hungarian elderly-care system while also revealing patriarchal family patterns passed down through generations. Previously a producer, Ponczók won Best Documentary at the 2026 Hungarian Film Awards for Papa. As the opening film of the 23rd Verzió, it also reflects this year’s festival focus on films and filmmakers portraying Roma communities.
When Success Comes Fast
Olivér Márk Tóth began filming Marcell Szirmai, better known as Pogány Induló, when the rapper was still a long way from playing arena shows. Meant to Be follows him over three years as he transforms from a high-school student in provincial Hungary into one of the biggest music stars of his generation. Sudden success, the pressure to perform, separation and addiction shape a coming-of-age story of a young man in his twenties today.
The story was previously released as a four-part HBO series. Its feature-length version was developed through dok.incubator, the prestigious Prague-based international documentary development programme. The film went on to win the Golden Hejnał Award for Best Music Documentary at the Krakow Film Festival.
The Teenagers the School System Had Given Up On
Bakpakk, the first documentary by Kitti Fődi, a journalist at 444, follows fourteen teenagers over the course of an entire school year. Many of them have experienced years of exclusion and failure before entering an unusual secondary-school programme where, instead of traditional academic subjects, the focus is on communication, self-awareness, cooperation and taking responsibility.
Fődi followed the class for nine months. Bakpakk observes what happens when children previously labelled “problematic” are given attention, time and trust. The project was also presented in the industry programme of Italy’s Biografilm festival and will have its Hungarian premiere at Verzió.
Secret Detention Beneath the House
Sára Timár’s first feature-length documentary, Under the Dance Floor, is set in the Budapest villa where the director grew up. Her father was Sándor Timár, the renowned choreographer and dance teacher who received Hungary’s prestigious Kossuth Prize and died earlier this year. The house has long been a home to the family and to folk dance, but during the communist dictatorship its basement was used for the secret detention of defendants in show trials. What begins as an investigation into family history develops into an exploration of collective memory and the unresolved legacy of twentieth-century Hungary.
The Hungarian-French co-production took part in EURODOC, IDFAcademy and Verzió DocLab, among other programmes. It received support from Sundance and won the Unifrance Doc Award at the DOK Leipzig Co-Pro Market.
A Theatre and Its Community
Ákos K. Kovács’s Theatre from Mud reunites two legendary founders of the Tanyaszínház travelling theatre, director György Hernyák and actor Frigyes Kovács, on the company’s 45th anniversary. Through rehearsals for a new production, the film brings to life the history of the travelling troupe and the Vojvodina community that has kept it alive for more than four decades. It also asks what it means today to create as part of a community, to pass on culture and to insist on the freedom of artistic expression.
Színház sárból won the Documentary Film Award at the 2026 Bangkok Movie Awards.
Stepping Out of a Great Poet’s Shadow?
Máté Bartha’s If You Want to Be a Poet approaches memory and artistic legacy through an unusual father-son story. Attila Bertók is fighting to ensure that the work of his father, László Bertók — the Kossuth and József Attila Prize-winning poet who died in 2020 — is not forgotten. At the same time, he must find his own place and his own voice in the shadow of his father’s legacy.
Featuring contemporary Hungarian poets, the film uses experimental visual and musical devices to explore the world of László Bertók’s poetry. As a photographer, Máté Bartha has won the Robert Capa Grand Prize and the Louis Roederer Discovery Award at Rencontres d’Arles. His documentary work combines observation, staged situations and experimental forms.
Short Films
Hungarian filmmakers also have a strong presence in the short film competition, with five films condensing social issues that span generations into highly personal stories.
Letter to the Editors (dir. Dorottya Márton) uses letters once sent by readers to the Hungarian women’s magazine Nők Lapja to bring women’s experiences under socialism into dialogue with the present. Omama (dir. Herr Martin) is an intimate encounter, full of gentle humour, between a filmmaker grandson and his 88-year-old grandmother. Do You Still Remember? (dir. Bernadett Benkó) explores the growing distance between a father and daughter and the possibility of finding their way back to each other. The Exhibition (dir. Dáša Raimanová, Béla Váradi) follows a queer Roma photographer living in London as he returns home, opening up questions of identity and self-representation. The Grandfather Puzzle (dir. Ora Dekornfeld) attempts to piece together the past of a hundred-year-old Holocaust survivor, one fragment at a time.
23rd Verzió International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival
16–25 November 2026
Since 2004, the Verzió International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival has presented some of the world’s most important creative documentaries addressing social issues. Verzió is one of Central Europe’s leading documentary platforms and has reached more than 275,000 viewers since its launch. Every November, it welcomes audiences in Budapest, in cities across Hungary and online.
Screenings are accompanied by Q&As and round-table discussions, while its educational programmes — Diák Verzió, UniVerzió and Cinemocracy — engage young people and educators. Its industry programmes, including DocPro, DocLab, Young Critics and Decolonising Curation, foster international professional connections.
Verzió is organised by the Verzió Film Foundation in cooperation with the Blinken OSA Archivum. Its principal supporters are the National Film Institute Hungary and the Creative Europe MEDIA programme, with additional key support from the Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values programme (CERV). The festival is a member of the Human Rights Film Network and the Doc Around Europe festival network.