As a member of this year’s jury for the International Debut Feature Film Competition, Hungarian director lldikó Enyedi (Body and Soul) will present her own debut feature film at the IWFF Dortmund | Cologne.
My 20th Century tells the stories of two women whose lives could not be more different: The glamorous Dóra is a successful erotic con artist, while impoverished Lili fights the anarchist cause for forcing political change. Dóra and Lili are twins, with fate separating them from childhood and only reuniting them again after many twists and turns.
New Year’s Eve of 1900 is the focal point from which My 20th Century plunges deeply into the world of modernity. It’s a time of upheaval and change: miracles of technology such as the light bulb, cinema and the telegraph bring splendour, diffusion and acceleration to the everyday life of big cities; psychoanalysis is in its infancy, the belief in progress is still undiminished by the catastrophes to come in the following decades. Enyedi shows her protagonists experiencing the limits of this period’s sexual and political emancipation of women in their respective moral extreme positions. In an associative montage shot in black and white, not shying away from jumping back and forth in time, space and thought, Enyedi lets poetic images combine to form a deeply subjective narrative about individuals caught up in the tumult of social upheaval. My 20th Century is now back on the big screen in a digitally restored version. It caused a minor sensation in its release year of 1989 – another major historical turning point.
»Nobody was taking socialism seriously anymore back then. No one would have foreseen how fast and how radically everything would change, but back then it was simply the smell of freedom. And this very first film of mine, which I made under socialism – it was probably the last production to be made under this socialist system – was the film in which I had the greatest freedom. More than in my entire career.«
– lldikó Enyedi

Awards for My 20th Century
Golden Camera – Cannes Film Festival 1989