The Unburied Man

Thanks to his courageous stand, Imre Nagy (Communist Premier in 1953-55 and 1956) became a symbol of the Hungarian Uprising, which was violently crushed by the Soviet Army. He and his liberal government urged that the state-run economy and its social gains be connected with political democracy. After being defeated, he was held in Snagov, Romania, and later imprisoned. Despite violent coercion, he never recognized János Kádár’s workerpeasant government. In 1958, after a staged trial and subsequent execution, he was buried anonymously. Key periods from the end of his life are reconstructed using documentary footage alternating with segments suggested by a memoir on Nagy written by his daughter Erzsébet. The film refers to the greater context of the biographically defined drama whose historical controversy is described by Nagy’s biographers Miklós Molnár and Laszló Szabó with the statement: If his life was the question, his death was the answer. (source: Catalogue 40th Karlovy Vary IFF)