Trailblazing auteur Márta Mészáros gives aching expression to the experiences of women in 1970s Hungary in this sensitive and absorbing drama, which became the first film directed by a woman to win the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. Through intimate camera work, Adoption immerses the viewer in the worlds of two women, each searching for fulfillment: Kata (Katalin Berek), a middle-aged factory worker who wants to have a child with her married lover, and Anna (Gyöngyvér Vígh), a teenage ward of the state determined to emancipate herself in order to marry her boyfriend. The bond that forms between the two speaks quietly but powerfully to the social and political forces that shape women’s lives, as each navigates the realities of love, marriage, and motherhood in her quest for self-determination.
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Supplements
- New video essay by scholar Catherine Portuges
- Interview with Márta Mészáros from 2009
- Blow-Ball, a 1964 short film by Mészáros
- Márta Mészáros: Portrait of the Hungarian Filmmaker, a 1979 documentary by Katja Raganelli featuring on-set interviews with the director and creative collaborators
- Trailer
- An essay by film scholar Elena Gorfinkel