Iska's Journey

Csaba Bollók’s film tells the story of boyish Iska, a twelve-year-old girl trapped between an unhappy home and an imagined life of escape and travel. Set in a Hungarian mining community, Iska’s is a grey tinged world amongst the half glimpsed green of the surrounding landscapes. Hollow cheeked, sombre close-ups are cast in chiaroscuro, with long silences and naturalistic dialogue that feels heart- wrenchingly real – as in Truffaut's '400 Blows', the line between fiction and fact is hazy throughout. A beautifully shot, ambient masterwork, Bollók’s film tells the story of the tenuous fight for childhood innocence in bleak, impossible circumstances.