CineFest, Hungary`s biggest film event starts on 11 September with a CineClassics screening: the digitally restored Once Upon a Time in the West - in the presence of Claudia Cardinale. The festival's 6 years old film history series presents an extensive western focus, screenings and a conference - and what`s more, it commemorates the Hungarian born Paramount founder, the legendary studio boss Adolph Zukor, producer of many early westerns, who was born in the nearby village Ricse.
CineFest`s country focus program screens Ivan Passer's 50 years old masterpiece Intimate Lighting and Michael Haneke's early film, the cathartic Benny's Video - in cooperation with the Czech Centre and the Austrian Cultural Forum. A Hungarian language presentation tells the story of the right 90 years old Miskolc city cinema, and an exhibition remembers the Russian stage and screen legend Smoktunovsky who was born 90 years ago (watch his brilliant Hamlet in the Miskolc Theatre Museum, Déryné u. 3.).
Smoktunovsky was one of the best Hamlets - for his 1964 performance in Grigory Kozintsev's legendary film Innokentiy Smoktunovsky was even nominated for the BAFTA (and the film was nominated for the Golden Globe). He was one of the best Shakespeare actors - and one of the best Russian actors ever. The Siberian-born son of Polish-Russian exilants appeared in hundreds of plays and in dozens of great films from The Unsent Letter to Nine Days in One Year, from Crime and Punishment to Uncle Vanya, just to name a few. Now a small exhibition - curated by Anna Geréb and Gábor Mikita, in cooperation with the Moscow Bahrusin Museum - honours him in the Miskolc Theatre Museum (Déryné u. 3.). Opening: right before the grand opening of the festival, 11 September, 3 PM.