The Lady from Constantinople: back in Cannes 55 years later

In 1969, Judit Elek was selected for the first time at the Festival to screen Sziget a szárazföldön (The Lady from Constantinople), Out of Competition. She has returned today at Cannes Classics, the opportunity to rediscover this psychological drama in her presence and in a restored version.

An older woman is forced to leave the large apartment she lives in. She decides to trade it for a smaller apartment with another owner. As she meets interested parties, with diverse and eccentric personalities, she finds that her solitary life is thrown into upheaval.

In Sziget a szárazföldön (The Lady from Constantinople), Judit Elek displays an implacable realism. She depicts the reality of housing in Budapest: the high real estate prices, crowded apartments and the system of exchange that results from this.

The director herself visited one of these places where adverts are posted by the dozens. In 1971, on French television, she said: “I started by reading these adverts and, little by little, I was interested by the ambiance, these people and their problems. I realized that they weren’t only looking for housing, but for friends.”

Thus was born the idea for this story, one of Judit Elek’s first. Some years prior, she had distinguished herself in documentaries. A figurehead of Hungarian direct cinema, she never ceased to maintain a penetrating rigour, in the service of a society that she sought to depict without artifice. Principles to which she would remain attached, including in the creation of her feature films.

A presentation of the National Film Institute Hungary – Film Archive.

4K digital restoration from the negative and a positive print.

35 mm original, undertaken by the NFI Hungary- Film Archive and Film Lab in the framework of the longterm restoration programme of Hungarian film heritage.

Digital grading supervised by the cinematographer Elemér Ragályi.