The movie Blockade will be released on October 20 – news from Debrecen, news from Debrecen | Debrecen and Hajdú-Bihar county news
The movie Blokád will be released in theaters on October 20
Budapest – From October 20th, cinemas will play the film Blokád directed by Ádám Tősér, it takes place during the taxi blockade of 1990, and the central figure is József Antall, the first freely elected prime minister after the regime change.
The taxi blockade erupted on October 25, 1990 and paralyzed the country for four days. Due to the drastic increase in the price of gasoline, passenger and freight carriers, fearing the uncertainty of existence, closed roads and bridges across the country. It was almost impossible to get to the capital, Budapest was the only metro. The traffic chaos turned into an economic and social crisis in a short period of time, which the government that took office barely five months ago seemed unable to handle. The prime minister, József Antall, who was struggling with his illness and had just been operated on, was faced with the fact that he had become the “enemy of the people” and that they were rebelling against him – read the film’s synopsis.
After Eternal Winter, I was looking for a story that was untold, that happened to all of us, but we rushed on and never looked back – emphasized screenwriter and creative producer Norbert Köbli at the film’s press conference on Monday in Budapest.
According to him, the taxi blockade is in the collective subconscious of every Hungarian, and “even if we think about it, we have a kind of superficial or commonplace ideas about what happened at that time”.
The breakthrough as a writer was on the street, when it became clear what kind of drama was going on in the background: during the ongoing social conflict, József Antall was in the hospital, waiting for the results of the histological examination to find out if he was facing a terminal illness. The story is multifaceted; It also looks back to 1956, when József Antall started his career as a young teacher and took part in the revolution.
Norbert Köbli emphasized: most of the story is based on authentic documents. Imre Kónya’s József Antall’s books Close Up and System Change from the Inside also provided sources, but they used the minutes of the government meetings of the time or, for example, the transcripts of all the negotiations of József Antall with German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
For example: the scene in which József Antall holds Gorbachev responsible for not yet apologizing to the Hungarian people for what happened in 1956 was taken from this.
However, for the events in the hospital, they relied on fiction, for example, the character of nurse Marica, who does not recognize the prime minister at the beginning, is fictional, which creates humorous situations.
Norbert Köbli said that József Antall “from 1956” can be known from the students’ recollections, but he was also observed by the state security for 15 years, and the story is fed from them. “When we dealt with the figure of József Antall, it turns out that even his enemies found it very difficult to find something bad about him, to take some skeleton out of the closet,” emphasized the screenwriter, emphasizing: József Antall was a decent politician and a good person.
He also spoke about the many parallels between the world of that time and today: for example, the problem of rising prices and the shortage of oil and natural gas. Today, similar questions arise as during the Cold War, for example: how to live peacefully side by side with the Russian empire – he said.
Producer Lajos Tamás also talks about how long research preceded the creation of the film, Imre Kónya, the former faction leader of the MDF, provided support with several stories due to his personal memories and his friendship with József Antall and also followed the production process.
He also talked about the fact that the foundation of the Árpád Bridge was built on the Formula 1 track in Mogyoród, the background of the bridge was realized with computer post-processing.
Director Ádám Tősér said: the shooting started a year ago, it lasted 48 days, the editing has already started. The film features 72 scripted characters. In the beginning, the role of József Antall would have been given to someone else, but in the end Zoltán Seress seemed to be the most suitable to portray the prime minister, he recalled.
Ildikó Tóth, who plays his wife, Klára Fülepp, said: after reading the script, he immediately said yes to the role. As he put it, the script was precise, stylish and witty.
Tibor Gáspár, with whom Norbert Köbli previously worked in the film Eternal Winter, plays former president Árpád Göncz. The actor said that at the time it was difficult to see the events. “At that time, there were a lot of sudden gas price increases, we didn’t even know what democracy was, we only learned it then,” he said. He emphasized: for him, the main thing was what Árpád Göncz’s character was like, how he thought and how he became with József Antall’s opponent, so that they had a close relationship in their youth.
According to Imre Kónya, the film reflects the reality of that time. He recalled that at the celebration organized on József Antall’s 60th birthday, the former prime minister said that “it is luck and a gift to fate that during these 60 years I have not had to do anything that would have caused me to be a little late”.
He reminded that József Antall was the first among the leaders of the countries of the Eastern bloc to propose the termination of the Warsaw Pact. As he said, József Antall was both diplomatic and radical in his actions, and for the sake of the strategic goal, he always made sure that he could achieve the most in the given case.
The film Blokád was nominated by Hungary in the 95th Oscar competition in the international film category.