MÜPA MOZI, the film club of the Palace of Arts and the Hungarian National Digital Archive and Film Institute (MaNDA), continues to welcome sell-out audiences for its third season. The series of musical films beginning in February presents a selection of iconic screen gems containing the biggest Hungarian hit tunes of the past 50 years. Audiences will get to see their favourite stars perform in a broad variety of genres, from operetta to socialist-era road movie, and from straight musical to retr...o parody. The casts feature everyone from János Sárdy to Zsuzsa Koncz, Hobo to the Latabár Brothers, Violetta Ferrari to János Gálvölgyi, Miklós Gábor to Hanna Honthy, and Imre Soós to “Bill the King”. The film club hosted by András Réz explores the source material behind the birth of hundreds of hit tunes, examining how the professional world of cabaret and operetta – inherited from the films of Gyula Kabos – was enriched by the social “workshops” of the 1950s: the factory, the swimming pool, the sports field. Seen through a variety of filters, in both period films and later satirical adaptations, we can discover how the naïve and love-struck, but ideologically ignorant, young worker was re-educated in the 1950s. During the lukewarm period of “goulash communism” in the 1960s, what role did the World Festival of Youth and Students and the TV talent show Ki mit tud? play in the emergence of beat groups such as Illés? How were iconic objects such as the Pacsirta radio set, noodles with grits or the Bambi soft drink – as well as socialism in general, with its declaration of communal cooperation and ideals – portrayed in a musical film of the 1960s, or in a later retro satire from the 1990s? Why has György Ránki’s musical Three Nights of Love (Egy szerelem három éjszakája) remained a popular favourite almost continuously since its appearance in the 1960s? How is it possible to capture the feeling of blues rock in the context of a documentary-style portrayal of the Kőbánya district of Budapest? And to the rhythm of which tune by the band Fonográf do we recall the emblematic image of the Zil truck grinding over the socialist asphalt having picked up a curly-haired blonde hitchhiker? A work frequently adapted for theatre and film, several silent and talkie versions of this popular operetta by Albert Szirmai had already appeared before the Second World War. The 1948 version was filmed by the most popular director of comedies in Hungarian film history, Márton Keleti. István Békeffy’s screenplay – faithful to the spirit of the time – portrays the aristocracy in sharply critical terms and workers as heroic, while using absurd dialogues and situations to accentuate the role of idiotic brothers Pixi and Mixi in comparison to the original operetta. The greatest comic actor-singers of the period, the Latabár brothers, display their crazy antics throughout the film while singing hit tunes with the popular romantic lead János Sárdy and the coquettish Marika Németh. They are joined by outstanding actors in the main speaking roles: Miklós Gábor, already well known from Somewhere in Europe (Valahol Európában), and the National Theatre regular Ági Mészáros. In this classic comedy of disguises and role-swapping, the hit tunes – among them the most popular, How I’d love to be Happy... (De szeretnék boldog lenni…) – spread like wildfire in markets, beer gardens and palaces alike in 1948, still free of the subtext of communist-era labour competitions. Filmed on monumental sets with costumes by Rotschild, it is the most watched Hungarian film of all time, having attained a total audience figure of ten million.
Parking information
We wish to inform you that in the event that Müpa Budapest's underground garage and outdoor car park are operating at full capacity, it is advisable to plan for increased waiting times when you arrive. In order to avoid this, we recommend that you depart for our events in time, so that you you can find the ideal parking spot quickly and smoothly and arrive for our performance in comfort. The Müpa Budapest underground garage gates will be operated by an automatic number plate recognition system. Parking is free of charge for visitors with tickets to any of our paid performances on that given day. The detailed parking policy of Müpa Budapest is available here.
Safe ticket purchase
Dear Visitors, please note that only tickets purchased from the Müpa website and official ticket offices are guaranteed to be valid. To avoid possible inconvenience, we suggest buying tickets to our performances and concerts via the mupa.hu website, the Interticket national network (jegy.hu) or at our official ticket offices.