Hungarian Film Wins Award at Cleveland Festival

Lili Horvát's romantic drama ‘Preparations to Be Together For an Unknown Period of Time’ won the Best Central-Eastern European Film Award at the 45th Cleveland International Film Festival.

The jury of American film experts said Lili Horvát's film was a refreshing blend of Italo Calvino and Kieslowski's wit, an ambitious guide to the intricacies of desire and a clever, charming, and at first glance illogical blend of love and a beautiful enigma, according to a statement from the National Film Institute.

This year, Cleveland's major international film festival was held online, presenting 116 feature films and 182 short films to American audiences over two weeks. The winners of the festival were announced over the weekend.

The Hungarian entry is a love story that straddles the line between reality and fantasy is still in the running for the Independent Spirit Award, known as the "Oscar of independents", the winner of which will be announced at the end of April.

The film has been an outstanding success in Hungary and abroad, winning awards at film festivals from Warsaw to Chicago and being received with great enthusiasm by US film critics at its US premiere in late January.

Most recently, the movie won the Best Director award at the international film festival in Dublin. Lili Horvát's film will be screened in Europe, Canada, Latin America and Australia in the near future, after the National Film Institute sold the film to 20 countries.

In the romantic drama, 40-year-old neurosurgeon Márta (Natasha Stork) falls in love. Leaving behind her glamorous American career, she returns to Budapest to start a new life with her husband (played by Viktor Bodó). But Márta waits in vain at the Pest end of Szabadság (Liberty) Bridge: the man fails to show up for the rendezvous. Desperate to find him, Márta goes in search of him, but when she does, the love of her life claims she has never seen him before.