Adoption

Trailblazing auteur Márta Mészáros gives aching expression to the experiences of women in 1970s Hungary in this sensitive and absorbing drama, which became the first film directed by a woman to win the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. Through intimate camera work, Adoption immerses the viewer in the worlds of two women, each searching for fulfillment: Kata (Katalin Berek), a middle-aged factory worker who wants to have a child with her married lover, and Anna (Gyöngyvér Vígh), a teenage ward of the state determined to emancipate herself in order to marry her boyfriend. The bond that forms between the two speaks quietly but powerfully to the social and political forces that shape women’s lives, as each navigates the realities of love, marriage, and motherhood in her quest for self-determination.

Film Info

  • Hungary
  • 1975
  • 86 minutes
  • Black & White
  • 1.85:1
  • Hungarian
  • Spine #1115

BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

  • New 4K digital restoration undertaken by the National Film Institute Hungary – Film Archive, supervised by cinematographer Lajos Koltai and approved by director Márta Mészáros, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
  • New video essay by scholar Catherine Portuges
  • Interview with Mészáros from 2019
  • Blow-Ball, a 1964 short film by Mészáros
  • Márta Mészáros: Portrait of the Hungarian Filmmaker, a 1979 documentary by Katja Raganelli featuring on-set interviews with the director and creative collaborators
  • Trailer
  • New English subtitle translation
  • PLUS: An essay by film scholar Elena Gorfinkel

    New cover by Katya Mezhibovskaya

Purchase Options

BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

  • New 4K digital restoration undertaken by the National Film Institute Hungary – Film Archive, supervised by cinematographer Lajos Koltai and approved by director Márta Mészáros, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
  • New video essay by scholar Catherine Portuges
  • Interview with Mészáros from 2019
  • Blow-Ball, a 1964 short film by Mészáros
  • Márta Mészáros: Portrait of the Hungarian Filmmaker, a 1979 documentary by Katja Raganelli featuring on-set interviews with the director and creative collaborators
  • Trailer
  • New English subtitle translation
  • PLUS: An essay by film scholar Elena Gorfinkel

    New cover by Katya Mezhibovskaya
Adoption
Cast
Katalin Berek
Kata
Gyöngyvér Vígh
Anna
László Szabó
Jóska
Péter Fried
Sanyi
István Kaszás
Institute director
Flóra Kádár
Erzsi
János Boross
Anna’s father
Erzsi Varga
Anna’s mother
Credits
Director
Márta Mészáros
Screenplay by
Márta Mészáros
Gyula Hernádi
Ferenc Grunwalsky
Cinematography by
Lajos Koltai
Edited by
Éva Kármentõ
Music by
György Kovács
Set design by
Tamás Banovich

Current

Adoption: Wayward Faces
Adoption: Wayward Faces

A parable of wayward women in a world without mothers, Márta Mészáros’s 1975 feature catapulted the Hungarian auteur to international prominence.

By Elena Gorfinkel