NOTHING TO SEE HERE

 Borbála Nagy 

Elf Pictures(Hungary), Zeitgeist Filmproduktion(Germany)

Yet another viral meme involving Hitler! This time, the Führer plays the principal lady of a Hungarian school. Who made the video? As the investigation proceeds, a sinister political system unfolds.

VIRÁG (49), the principal lady of the small town high school, ÉVI (37), the school secretary and the SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR (57) are shockingly watching a video on a phone. We see and hear Hitler shouting in German, but from the Hungarian subtitles we understand the joke: in this context it is Virág who is shouting. The prank video makes fun of the principal lady by identifying her with the Führer with the help of the fake subtitles.

A student, DOMI (16), is writing down his confession dictated by his headmaster PÉTER (52) and Virág. Évi and Péter sign as witnesses. The video gets deleted. Problem handled and solved. Évi is worried because she signed a document which was written under pressure. She obeyed Virág because she cannot afford to lose her job. On the other hand, she is the lover of Domi’s father, CSABA (44), and it is a moral dilemma for her what to do.

Domi doesn’t understand why FRUZSI (16) told on him. Did the girl do it to gain better marks, really? He neither understands why it is necessary to write things down on paper. For Virág, on the other hand, the Hitler-video is capable of ruining her life. Comparing her to a dictator hits the childless, aging leader lady in the guts. Also, it is very unfortunate timing because the church, who wants to take over the high school, wouldn’t keep her in her position if such irregularities happen. Virág has to make sure she controls the events, so she reports Domi to the police.

As a result, Csaba has to go through a child protective service examination process, showing that everything is fine - except that he runs the family alone, he doesn’t believe his own son, Domi, he is unemployed and even his lover, Évi, behaves in a way he cannot accept.

As the truth is being examined from the higher point of views - of the police, the church and the social services -, all the involved are drifting further away from the reality.

Inspired by true events.

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Director’s biography: Borbála Nagy  / IMDb

Borbála Nagy studied movie sciences in Budapest, where she made her first shorts, mainly comedies. In 2011, Nagy left her homeland for personal and political reasons. Nagy moved to Germany where she successfully applied to the DFFB as a director. The shorts she has made since then, have been shown at festivals worldwide. EVERYTHING ALRIGHT (2018) was nominated for the German Short Film Award and for the German Film Critics Award. Currently, she is working as a director’s assistant / dramaturge whilst at the same time developing the script for her debut feature, NOTHING TO SEE HERE.

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Producer’s biography: Ágnes Horváth-Szabó  / IMDb

Ágnes Horváth-Szabó studied law, cultural management and film. Besides working on shorts and documentaries, she associate produced LILY LANE (d: Bence Fliegauf, feature fiction, 2016), and GRANNY PROJECT (d: Bálint Révész, feature doc, 2017).
Her debut as main producer won the Sarajevo FF Special Jury Prize. NINE MONTH WAR (d: László Csuja, feature doc, 2018) has since travelled worldwide, winning Best Documentary at the Los Angeles FF for Hungarian Films and a Special Jury Mention at Cinema Verité Tehran FF.
Her projects have been presented at Berlinale, Cannes, Les Arcs, LisbonDocs and more.

Where are we at?

Estimated production budget: 1.043.977,00 EUR

Financing in place:  263.977,00 EUR

 

Production timeline: 

1st draft: October 2020
Further drafts, financing: Jan-Dec 2021
1st etap of pre-production: Jan-April 2022
2nd etap of pre-production: May-July 2022
Shooting: August-September 2022
Editing: Oct 2021 - Feb 2022
Image and sound post production: Feb-April 2023
Completion: May 2023

Looking for at CineLink?

Co-producers and broadcasters from other countries than Germany (We have a German co-producer attached.)

Director’s statement

Youth is an age in which the character emerges, but can be damaged in the long run. Having worked as a teacher, I have witnessed the school structures from both sides of the fence. I’ve experienced unfairness, mistreatment, verbal abuse and a place depicting and reproducing flawed social conditions. My characters are victims of absurd circumstances. DOMI’s story functions as a junction for the characters directly or indirectly affected. Between the two main poles of the principal lady VIRÁG and teenage Domi, there is the desperate father protecting his son; the boy's circle of friends, whose dynamics are set in motion by the scandal, and the school secretary facing a moral dilemma. Priorities in life, differences in hierarchy, interests and obligations intertwine and collide. While everyone is struggling with their personal fights, the mosaic pieces outline a snapshot of our authoritarian society.

Producer's statement

The core theme in NOTHING TO SEE HERE (NSH) is the multi-layered dysfunctionality of an authoritarian society. To display such phenomena in film, we don’t need costumes in Hungary. News about collapsing democracy and unlawful decrees are headlines in the mainstream media. In The Guardian, Deutsche Welle and The NYT, the name of Orbán has evolved into a funny meme to symbolize dictatorship and the threat of populism.
Enveloped in an entertaining detective story, our film provides a model to study the mechanisms of an authoritarian regime, the threat of which is growing globally. NSH is a German-Hungarian co-production looking for partners who share our vision: we not only find it important to tap on this timely issue, but also want to engage with democracy at times when radical changes in our political structure are imminent.

Production Company profile

ELF PICTURES a Budapest based production and distribution company, was founded in 2016 by former freelance producers Ágnes Horváth-Szabó. and András Pires Muhi. ELF debuted with the Sarajevo Jury Special Prize winner documentary, NINE MONTH WAR (2018), co-produced OCCUPATION 1968 and THE BARON RETURNS the same year. ELF has numerous international projects under way. Their supporters include the Doha Film Institute, HBO Europe, Creative Europe, HAVC, ARTE, private investors and the National Film Institute of Hungary.

Email: agnes@elfpictures.hu

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