Friday Night Films at the Wende: Don’t Cry, Pretty Girls!

Don’t Cry, Pretty Girls! captures the youth culture of 1960s Hungary, and follows a group of music fans from their daily life in a steel factory to nights out, going from concert to concert. Juli (Jarka Schallerová) has left her home in the countryside and is living in a workers’ hostel; she falls for a musician (Lajos Balázsovits), and soon must face a choice between him and her fiancé (Márk Zala). The film features performances by top rock bands of the 1960s and early ’70s such as Kex, Metro, and Illés (the Hungarian counterpart to The Beatles), who were later banned due to political pressure. By using lyrics with hidden political meaning, Mészáros was able to escape censorship.

Márta Mészáros was the first female director to win the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival, for her 1975 film Adoption. She has directed over thirty films since her debut feature in 1968 and has dedicated her career to depicting the lives of women and their right to independence.

—

Don’t Cry, Pretty Girls! is part of a series of films directed by women screened in conjunction with the exhibition The Medea Insurrection: Radical Women Artists behind the Iron Curtain. The recently restored film is presented courtesy of the Film Archive of the Hungarian National Film Fund.