Explanation for Everything

Summer in Budapest. Abel cannot get his head into his final exams because he has just worked out that he is in love with Janka, his closest friend, while Janka's attention is fixed on Jakab, her married history teacher. At the oral history exam Jakab asks Abel about the nationality pin on his jacket, and that one question leaves the school, reaches the press and becomes a national scandal. Gábor Reisz builds the film by handing the same incident to one character after another: the boy, the girl, the teacher, the conservative father, the journalist. Nobody is granted the moral high ground in advance; the point is how each of them trims the event to fit the story they already believe. It won the Orizzonti award for best film at Venice in 2023.