SOFT HOURS’ theme has been at the heart of my interest for many years, continuing the thematic line of my previous short films, AFFRICATE (2022) and FALLING (2023). In those, the cinematic treatment of mother-child relationships often turns the protagonist into a being who is constantly sacrificing herself, for whom motherhood becomes a kind of deprivation of her own identity. ILONA is neither a childless woman nor a mother. She is someone whose life is one of constant waiting, of constant hoping, for whom there is no future, no present, only the past. For Ilona to get to the point where she can decide to begin her mourning, it is essential to face her own guilt. Have I done everything I could to find TÓBIAS? Did I somehow provoke my son to disappear? After meeting LEON, she doesn't just reject the position of the eternally remorseful mother and allows herself to finally mourn, but by breaking the stereotype of a bad mother, she can rediscover her lost femininity. My deep interest in the above-mentioned themes is rooted in my relationship with my mother. Due to her illness from my childhood, the roles in our relationship reversed, and I became a parent involuntarily: the mother of my own mother. As I entered the age of possible maternity, motherhood became for me a condition threatening the loss of identity and freedom. As a current—and probably future—childless woman, I feel that the only perspective my country, Hungary, can offer me is social dysfunctionality and exclusion. These feelings fed Ilona’s character in me and made the birth of Soft Hours a pressing necessity. I believe that Soft Hours should emphasize the contrast between Eastern and Western Europe by offering Ilona an environment based in Western Europe in the storyline, where she is finally able to take steps against the taboos that she is pressed by in Hungary. That is why, besides having our Slovakian partner, Barbara Janisová Feglova (Hitchhiker Cinema), it also justified our need, with main Hungarian producer Genovéva Petrovits, to have another international partner outside of our region, especially because the issues discussed above in the Eastern European cultural milieu can gain a different perspective from Western Europe. This is how we met Edyta Janczak-Hiriart (Kometa Films), who herself can understand our ambitions as a French producer of Polish origin. I am currently writing the third version of the script, focusing on building more depth in Ilona's character development and making her relationship with Leon more dynamic, under the mentorship of Béla Tarr. In this project, I will continue working with the established Hungarian actress Adél Kováts, who played the main role in my latest short, Affricate. For Leon’s character, we are very happy to work with emerging French-Hungarian actor Sándor Funtek. During the writing process, based on the feedback from the first part of the Cinelink Workshop in Slano, my aim is to bring up Ilona's encounter with Leon earlier and to remove the subplot that did not contribute to the storyline. Doing research helps me to make Ilona’s character more authentic: recently, I started working with a Hungarian mother whose son disappeared decades ago. The interviews with her not only make Ilona’s character more credible but also help build greater empathy with the complex protagonist.