TOHUFF
Mari Törőcsik Hungarian Film Festival
Toronto
27-29 October 2023
Between 27 and 29 October, the first TOHUFF will take place to honour the memory of Mari Törőcsik. This year's programme will showcase the most important feature films of Hungarian cinema from 2022, screening at The Carlton Cinema. The festival is organized in cooperation with the Consulate General of Hungary in Toronto and leading Hungarian companies and organizations in Toronto, the GTA and Ontario. Special thanks to Susan Papp - Aykler, without whom this festival would not have been possible!
MARI TÖRŐCSIK
Mari Törőcsik (1935–2021) was an internationally renowned and award-winning Hungarian actress. Mari worked with passion from 1956 to 2020, leaving important contributions in cinema, theater and TV. Törőcsik’s first international appearance was at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival where she starred in Palme d’Or contender Körhinta (Merry-Go-Round), from director Zoltán Fábri. In that film, she played a young farmer girl who falls in love with a peasant boy against her father’s wishes. Francois Truffaut, who was then a journalist with the weekly Arts, said he would have given her the Best Actress Award and French poet Jean Cocteau also praised her talent. Truffaut wrote: “without the twenty-year-old artist knowing it, she was the biggest star of the festival.”
Over the past half century, she played more than 100 roles. She worked with Fábri as well as Miklós Jancsó, Márta Mészáros and Károly Makk on multiple occasions. Many of her films were screened at the Cannes Film Festival and she captivated audiences on the Croisette in films such as Fábri’s Édes Anna (Anna), Jancsó’s Szerelemem, Elektra (Electra My Love), Makk’s Szerelem (Love) and Gyula Maár’s Déryné, hol van? (Mrs. Déry, Where Are You?).
In 1971 she came close to snapping up the Cannes Best Actress Award for her moving portrayal in Makk’s Jury Prize winning Szerelem (Love) but it wasn’t until 1976 that she cinched the prestigious award for her role in Déryné, hol van? (Mrs. Déry, Where Are You?), where she played an ageing theater actress. Törőcsik also performed in two Hungarian films nominated for a Best Foreign Language Oscar, Zoltán Fábri’s adaptation Ferenc Molnár’s novel, A Pál utcai fiúk (The Boys of Paul Street) in 1968, and Macskajáték (Catsplay) by Makk in 1975.
International audiences saw her again in the 1984 film Szamárköhögés (Whooping Cough) by Péter Gárdos, which won the top prize at the Chicago Film Festival in 1987, in Costa Gavras’s Golden Bear-winning Music Box in 1989 and Oscar-winner István Szabó’s Napfény íze (Sunshine). Her final film appearance was the lead role in Mészáros’ historical drama Aurora Borealis – Északi fény (Aurora Borealis – Northern Lights) in 2017.
Photo by FORTEPAN/FSZEK BUDAPEST GYÚJTEMÉNY/ SÁNDOR GYÖRGY
Photo by Gaspar Stekovics
MARI TÖRŐCSIK
Mari Törőcsik (1935–2021) was an internationally renowned and award-winning Hungarian actress. Mari worked with passion from 1956 to 2020, leaving important contributions in cinema, theater and TV. Törőcsik’s first international appearance was at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival where she starred in Palme d’Or contender Körhinta (Merry-Go-Round), from director Zoltán Fábri. In that film, she played a young farmer girl who falls in love with a peasant boy against her father’s wishes. Francois Truffaut, who was then a journalist with the weekly Arts, said he would have given her the Best Actress Award and French poet Jean Cocteau also praised her talent. Truffaut wrote: “without the twenty-year-old artist knowing it, she was the biggest star of the festival.”
Over the past half century, she played more than 100 roles. She worked with Fábri as well as Miklós Jancsó, Márta Mészáros and Károly Makk on multiple occasions. Many of her films were screened at the Cannes Film Festival and she captivated audiences on the Croisette in films such as Fábri’s Édes Anna (Anna), Jancsó’s Szerelemem, Elektra (Electra My Love), Makk’s Szerelem (Love) and Gyula Maár’s Déryné, hol van? (Mrs. Déry, Where Are You?).
In 1971 she came close to snapping up the Cannes Best Actress Award for her moving portrayal in Makk’s Jury Prize winning Szerelem (Love) but it wasn’t until 1976 that she cinched the prestigious award for her role in Déryné, hol van? (Mrs. Déry, Where Are You?), where she played an ageing theater actress. Törőcsik also performed in two Hungarian films nominated for a Best Foreign Language Oscar, Zoltán Fábri’s adaptation Ferenc Molnár’s novel, A Pál utcai fiúk (The Boys of Paul Street) in 1968, and Macskajáték (Catsplay) by Makk in 1975.
International audiences saw her again in the 1984 film Szamárköhögés (Whooping Cough) by Péter Gárdos, which won the top prize at the Chicago Film Festival in 1987, in Costa Gavras’s Golden Bear-winning Music Box in 1989 and Oscar-winner István Szabó’s Napfény íze (Sunshine). Her final film appearance was the lead role in Mészáros’ historical drama Aurora Borealis – Északi fény (Aurora Borealis – Northern Lights) in 2017.
Photo by FORTEPAN/FSZEK BUDAPEST GYÚJTEMÉNY/ SÁNDOR GYÖRGY
Photo by Gaspar Stekovics
Location
The Film Festival will take place at the Carlton Cinema.
Address: Carlton Cinema, 20 Carlton St., Toronto, ON M5B 2H5
Arriving By TTC: The closest subway station is College Station
Parking: If you are arriving by vehicle, parking is available at the top of Church Street or in the Church Street parking garage