AURORA BOREALIS – ÉSZAKI FÉNY / AURORA BOREALIS – NORTHERN LIGHTS

Aurora Borealis is a family story with two twisting timelines. Mária, the elderly mother of Olga – a successful lawyer living in Vienna, falls unexpectedly ill and is now in a coma. As Mária hovers between life and death, Olga incidentally unearths a secret that has been deliberately hidden. Her investigation takes her all the way back to a war-torn Europe of the 1950s. The film discusses the dramatic situations that grow out of identity crises, the open wounds caused by war in a shattered Europe, and the liberating power of lies unveiled.

Márta Mészáros was born in Budapest. Between 1935 and 1946 she lived in the Soviet Union. Her father, László Mészáros, a sculptor, who emigrated there, fell victim to Stalin’s cleansing. After graduating from the Union State Film School in Moscow in 1956, she made documentary films in the Bucharest Alexandru Sahia Studio until 1958, and then worked for the Hungarian Film Production Company until 1968 as a short-film director. She has been making feature films since 1968. Her Diary-series are autobiographically inspired, the Diary for my Children was banned for two years. Since 1992 she has been managing director of the Nagy Imre Association. 

Aurora Borealis takes history and country-shap(k)ing events to tell a humanistic story of a survival in the bleak times, the personal tragedy and inner drama of the protagonist in the Sophie’s Choice-like plight and a lifetime of guilt and doubt.

Martin Kudlac, ScreenAnarchy