Atlanta Jewish Film Festival – Orphan

In Oscar-winner László Nemes’s tragic yet exquisitely wrought coming-of-age fable, a Jewish boy in Soviet-occupied 1957 Hungary confronts the cracks buried within his family’s carefully guarded past. Andor (Bojtorján Barabas), newly reunited with his stoic mother Klára (Andrea Waskovics) after years in an orphanage, clings to tales of a father lost to the camps. The arrival of the brutish Berend (Grégory Gadebois), tied to Klára’s wartime escape, shatters that shaky mythology. As the communist regime tightens its grip and his parents’ trauma surfaces, Andor struggles to face the darkness he may inherit. Drawn from Nemes’s childhood memories and handsomely shot on 35mm, Hungary’s Oscar submission is a stark, stately meditation on the psychological toll passed down across generations.