''Sunset'' ( hu, Napszállta) is a 2018 Hungarian

historical drama A historical drama (also period drama, costume drama, and period piece) is a work set in a past time period, usually used in the context of film and television. Historical drama includes historical fiction and romance film, romances, adventure f ...

film directed by

László Nemes László Nemes (born Nemes Jeles László; ; 18 February 1977) is a Hungarian film director and screenwriter. His 2015 debut feature film, ''Son of Saul,'' was screened in the main competition at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the ...

and co-written by Nemes, Clara Royer and Matthieu Taponier. It is set in

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...

before

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, starring newcomer Juli Jakab and

Vlad Ivanov Vlad Ivanov (; born Vladimir Ivanov , 4 August 1969) is a Romanian actor of Lipovan , flag = Flag of the Lipovans.png , flag_caption = Flag of the Lipovans , image = Evstafiev-lipovane-slava-cherkeza.jpg , caption = Lipovans during a c ...

. It premiered at the

75th Venice International Film Festival The 75th Venice International Film Festival was held from 29 August to 8 September 2018. Mexican film director Guillermo del Toro was named as the President of the Jury. '' First Man'', directed by Damien Chazelle, was selected to open the fest ...

and was also screened at the

2018 Toronto International Film Festival The 43rd annual Toronto International Film Festival was held from September 6 to 16, 2018. In June 2018, the TIFF organizers announced a program to ensure that at least 20 percent of all film critics and journalists given press accreditation to ...

. It was selected as the Hungarian entry for the

Best Foreign Language Film This is a list of categories of awards commonly awarded through organizations that bestow film awards, including those presented by various film, festivals, and people's awards. Best Actor/Best Actress *See Best Actor#Film awards, Best Actress#F ...

at the

91st Academy Awards The 91st Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored the best films of 2018 and took place on February 24, 2019, at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles. During the ceremony, A ...

, but it was not nominated.

Plot

1913, Budapest, in the heart of Europe. The young Irisz Leiter arrives in the Hungarian capital with high hopes to work as a milliner at the legendary hat store that belonged to her late parents. She is nonetheless sent away by the new owner, Oszkár Brill. While preparations are under way at the Leiter hat store to host guests of uttermost importance, a man abruptly comes to Irisz looking for a certain Kálmán Leiter. Refusing to leave the city, the young woman follows Kálmán's tracks, her only link to a lost past. Her quest brings her through the dark streets of Budapest, where only the Leiter hat store shines, into the turmoil of a civilization on the eve of its downfall.

Cast

Production

Development

The film received €5 million from the Hungarian National Film Fund and the project is produced by Gabor Sipos and Gabor Rajna through Laokoon Filmgroup. Sunset is being sold and co-produced by French outfit Films Distribution. The film is expected to get support also from Eurimages.

Casting

Juli Jakab, who plays the protagonist of the film, was chosen among more than 1,000 Hungarian actresses.

Filming

Shooting took place between 12 June and 2 September 2017 in Hungary.

Release

''Sunset'' premiered in competition at the

on 2 September 2018. The film was released in Hungary on 27 September 2018.

Reception

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website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film holds an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . The site's critical consensus says, "''Sunset (Napszállta)'' struggles to fill its runtime with consistently compelling drama, but uses one woman's experiences to convincingly capture a society at a crossroads." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

the film has a weighted average score of 65 out of 100 based on 23 critic reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Accolades

At the Venice Film Festival, the film won the

FIPRESCI The International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI, short for Fédération Internationale de la PRESse CInématographique) is an association of national organizations of professional film critics and film journalists from around the world fo ...

Award.

References

External links

* {{Hungarian submissions for the Academy Award 2018 films 2010s historical drama films Films set in 1913 Films set in Budapest Films shot in Budapest Films directed by László Nemes Hungarian historical drama films 2018 drama films Hungarian World War I films French World War I films 2010s Hungarian-language films