CHILD MURDERS

“I first heard the stories in 1968 from a policeman conducting an investigation of a 12-year-old-murderer. Many years passed before I was able…to shoot this film.” So states director Ildiko Szabo of this haunting, but ultimatley hopeful tale of childhood's end. It is not an easy or pleasant tale, nor one which offers facile dichotomies of right and wrong, good and evil. Twelve- year-old Zsolt Badogh lives in utter loneliness with his bed-ridden grandmother, a one-time prima donna actress in the advanced stages of Norma Desmond syndrome, her grandson and the bottle are her only companions. One day during his daily wanderings along the Danube, Zsolt meets a young, pregnant Gypsy girl, Joli, who lives in an abandoned railway car. Because he befriends the outcast, he himself is rejected, ridiculed, and beaten by the jealous neighborhood children. His loyalty to Joli leads to revenge and tragic consequences. Filled with images of great beauty, subtle in storytelling yet universal in themes, CHILD MURDERS is a poetic re-creation of a macabre drama.-Kit Kalfs. In Hungarian with English subtitles