Cinema
My 20th Century
Az én XX. századom
Ildikó Enyedi · 1989
Synopsis
Budapest, 1880, the night Edison presents his lamp across the ocean: twin girls are born. Orphaned, they sell matches in the street, until the evening when two strangers take them away, each in a different direction. They grow up without knowing each other: Dóra lives off rich men and what she takes from them, Lili carries bombs for the anarchist cause. On the eve of the new century, the Europe of trains and electricity carries them about without their recognising each other, and the same man meets them both without seeing that there are two of them.
Context
The two sisters, and their mother, are played by the same actress, Dorota Segda, opposite Oleg Yankovsky. Co-produced by Hungary, West Germany and Cuba, the film features Edison and the philosopher Otto Weininger. Shown in February 1989 at the Hungarian film week, then in May in the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival, it was released in Budapest on 30 November 1989; Hungary then submitted it for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, but it was not among the nominees.
Who it is for
A black-and-white fable full of inventions, trains and electricity; re-released in France in a restored print on 14 March 2018.
Prizes and reception
Caméra d'or in 1989, and chosen in 2000 among the twelve best Hungarian films in history, the Budapest New Dozen.