Orphan

Budapest, 1957. It has not been a year since the uprising was put down and the city is still broken. Andor is twelve and lives with his mother. He was told his father died in the war. Then a man appears and the boy thinks he may be his father. He follows him. What comes out is not who his father was but what his mother did during the war years and how she survived. László Nemes writes and directs. Bojtorján Barabas plays Andor. The film was shown in the main competition of the Venice Film Festival on 28 August 2025 and competed for the Golden Lion. The source is the director's own family; Nemes said he was telling his father's story and that the narrative carries the link between the Holocaust and the communist period. The form is Nemes's known preference: the camera stuck to the boy, the background out of focus, and information given only as far as the character sees it. The subject is not history directly; the narrative is built on a child moving through a past he does not understand. It keeps the pace deliberately low, and that choice divided the reviews. Who it is for: viewers who like Nemes's manner and art cinema grounded in history. Who it is not for: it is slow, information is deliberately withheld, and the narrative gives the viewer no easy way.