Massachusetts Multicultural Film Festival - Adoption

Directed by: Márta Mészáros

Released: July 7, 1975

Screening Date: March 22, 2023, UMass Amherst, 137 Isenberg School of Management

Run Time: 99 min

Kata, a widow in socialist Hungary, lives alone, plies her skills as a woodworker in a furniture factory, and keeps up for years an affair with a married co-worker.  When a group of teenage girls from the orphanage stops at her home, the balance of her life is disturbed by the beautiful, self-possessed Anna.  Kata discovers her desire for a child, either by birth or by adoption.  With breathtaking closeups, revelatory moving frames, and lush black-and-white photography, Mészáros creates a richly layered portrait of women seeking love and freedom and learning that adoption, in all its forms, demands unanticipated adaptation.

Special Guest, Catherine Portuges (UMass
Professor Emerita, Founding Director of UMass
Film Studies, and Founding Curator of the MMFF).

Introduction by Shawn Shimpach (UMass).

Co-sponsored by UMass Amherst Department of Anthropology.

7:30pm UMass Amherst
137 Isenberg School of Management