Miklós Erdély was a Hungarian architect, artist, writer, and filmmaker who in the 1960s–80s became a key figure in Budapest’s neo-avant-garde artistic circles. When the renowned Balázs Béla Studio created an opportunity for non-professional filmmakers to make films, Erdély was among the artists who seized it. Erdély’s Dream Reconstructions attempts to represent the unrepresentable—in three different sequences, we see three individuals trying to reconstruct their dreams. The film probes the relationship between personal experience and interpersonal communication, mobilizing the tools of cinema and using experimental editing techniques to mimic the workings of the subconscious.

The screening of this film is co-presented with LA Filmforum, coinciding with the exhibition Promote, Tolerate, Ban: Art and Culture in Cold War Hungary, a joint initiative of the Wende Museum and the Getty Research Institute, on view at the Wende Museum until August 26. For more information on the exhibition and other related events, click here.