Nóra Szabó

Judit Ember returns to follow the life of Nóra Szabó, the heroine of her documentary film 𝘛𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘰̈𝘳𝘵𝘦́𝘯𝘦𝘵 ("Instructive Story", 1975). The troubled young woman who formerly attempted to commit suicide by jumping off a fourth floor is now an unmarried and pregnant mother with two children. Her own mother also brought up her children in similar circumstances, in a closed community without men. But Jenő, the unflaggingly energetic labourer and father of Nóra’s third, as yet unborn child, brings change into their lives.

The protagonist of the film is Nóra, a teenager blessed with remarkable intellect, but unable to utilise her talents due to conflicts at school and with her family, with a tendency to harm even herself. The film looks back on the past life of Nóra and her circle of friends seven years back, investigating what brought them together then torn them apart as they have to face their old selves, lives and fates.

Once upon a time back during the high noon of the cheerful gray Kádár regime, there was a teenage girl living in Nagykovácsi who jumped from the third floor because of unrequited love and loneliness, but miraculously lived to bear three children, try her luck with five different husbands, to bury her teenage son, to stifle her grief in drink, to help people more unfortunate than herself, to show the viewers what a truly passionate life is like by participating in a documentary film.