Keswick Film Festival

Synopsis

A pampered sports star, a water-polo player, falls for a student activist. This is Hungary in the 1950's, where the parents of scriptwriter Joe Esterhasz (Jagged Edge, Basic Instinct) emigrated from. And so the movie – made in Hungary by a Hungarian crew - moves gradually towards its twin climaxes: the unsuccessful revolution of 1956, and the Olympic water polo match in the same year, between Hungary and the USSR, in which there was 'blood in the water'. 'The film has been given the polished Hollywood treatment, but its feel is no less authentic for that…for me [the characters] are symbols of the tragedy that befell my country' (Monica Porter, daughter of Hungarian revolutionaries and reviewer for The Times).

Thanks to Lionsgate Films