Hungary has picked Post Mortem, a period horror movie set at the end of World War I, to be its official contender for the 2022 Oscars in the best international feature category.
Directed by Peter Bergendy, Post Mortem premiered at last year’s Warsaw Film Festival and screened at Spain’s Sitges and several international fantasy film fests. It won four trophies at the Hungarian Motion Picture Awards, including for best cinematography, best editing, best make-up, and best production design.
The film follows Tomás (Viktor Klem), a post-mortem photographer wandering through Hungary in the freezing winter of 1918, when the country has been devastated by the slaughter of World War I and the Spanish Flu epidemic. He meets a 10-year-old orphan girl, Anna (Fruzsina Hais). They take shelter in a village that turns out to be haunted. Together they try to investigate the reason the spirits have returned to earth, raving with fury.
Black Mandala has picked up North American rights to Post Mortem, which is being sold worldwide by NFI World Sales.
Hungary has been nominated ten times for the international feature Oscar and has won twice: for István Szabó’s Mephisto in 1981, and for László Nemes’ Holocaust drama Son of Saul in 2015.
The shortlist for the 2022 Oscars will be unveiled on Dec. 21. Nominations will be announced on Feb. 8 and the 94th Academy Awards will be held on March 27.