István Szabó’s SUNSHINE Rises Again at Cannes
zita kisgergely
Restored by the NFI’s Film Archive and Filmlab, István Szabó’s 1999 award-winning film SUNSHINE gets a new lease on life as it screens in Cannes Classics this year.
Legendary Hungarian director István Szabó will be in attendance at the Cannes Film Festival where he’s set to receive a special lifetime tribute award as part of the centenary celebration of FIPRESCI, the International Federation of Film Critics. Szabó was also a recipient of a FIPRESCI prize in Cannes in 1981 for Mephisto, which went on to win Hungary its first Academy Award for best foreign-language film.
Szabó has presented films for competition in Cannes five times. Apart from his wins with Mephisto in 1981, he won the jury prize in 1985 for Colonel Redl and participated as a jury member in 1986.
Director of the Filmlab in Hungary Viktória Sovák revealed that the meticulous and time-consuming restoration of Sunshine was done specially in preparation for the film’s screening in Cannes. She further explained that the frames of the film had been partially corrupted and spotted with white blotches and colour imbalances.
Hungarian director, István Szabó. Picture via Imdb.
The film’s original cinematographer Lajos Koltai (another giant of the Hungarian film industry) was able to make adjustments to the digital version thanks to advances in technology since the time the film was shot. This meant that new, minute and hitherto invisible background details of the film were able to be highlighted.
Sunshine, which stars Ralph Fiennes, Rachel Weisz and Jennifer Ehle, is a sweeping narrative that follows five generations of a Hungarian-Jewish family from the Austro-Hungarian Empire of the mid-19th century to the Cold War era and fall of the Iron Curtain. After its premier in 1999, Sunshine went on to secure three European Film Awards.
The ambitious 4K digital revamp of Sunshine is part of a broader film restoration program that began in the 1990s. Since that time, over 400 feature films, documentaries and animations have been completely restored, along with the digitization of 55 volumes of historic newsreels. Other important works that have been given a new lease on life include films by iconic directors Miklós Jancsó, Márta Mészáros and Béla Tarr. The restoration program is not only reintroducing classic films to a global audience but also underlines Hungary’s capacity in film restoration and post-production services.
For international production companies seeking expertise in filmmaking, diverse locations rich in period details and state-of-the-art facilities, filming in Hungary offers a complete package—from soundstage to screening. Recent international productions such as Pablo Larraín’s Maria, Yorgos Lanthimos’s Poor Things, and Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist have utilized Hungary’s top-tier production and post-production capabilities.
More Hungarian classics are sure to be reborn soon. Don’t miss the Budapest Classics Film Marathon this September where Szabó’s Being Julia will also make its restored debut.
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