ORPHAN (ÁRVA) World Cinema

László Nemes, an Oscar® winner for 2015’s SON OF SAUL, returns with another trenchant exploration of Hungary’s 20th century history, this time set in 1957, just one year after the USSR brutally suppressed the Hungarian Uprising. Andor (Bojtorján Barabas) desperately longs for the return of his father, a Hungarian Jew named Hirsch, gone missing since WWII. But his mother (Andrea Waskovics) suggests that Berend (Grégory Gadebois), a gentile who hid her on his farm during the Holocaust, may really be his father. Rejecting this as unthinkable betrayal, Andor prays for the return of his real father, even praying to him, while acting out rebelliously in ways small and large. Nemes once again works with the talented cinematographer Mátyás Erdély (AFI Class of 2005) to create a visual marvel with every shot artfully composed, and Budapest’s architecture and Soviet-era period trappings shown off in a hazily sepia-toned light that gives this story of absent fathers and imposed ones the ominous glow of a powerful myth. –Todd Hitchcock