István Sz. Szabó

Zsigmond Móricz wrote his novel Butterfly in just a few days in 1924. Móricz tells the story of a mighty love that triumphs over adversity and is all-powerful in the language of ordinary people. The love of Zsuzsika and Jóska is presented through the "lightning and veil-soft" emotions of the director, László Vitézy's television adaptation. After The Legend of Hortobágy (Komorló) and The Sky Bird, this is the third film made by László Vitézy based on the writings of Zsigmond Móricz.

The reformed priest of Gát, Pap Énók, gets married. He is engaged to the worthy Miss Ica Zádor from Malomsk and Zádor. At the Easter 'priestess election ball', Énók could have chosen a wife from among thirty-five Gáti girls, but he asked the thirty-sixth, Ica, a young lady from Pest. Enoch, of peasant origin, had studied his way up to the middle-class intellectuals of the countryside. Ica, the scion of a ruined noble family, comes from Budapest to a low-class marriage, but Ica's rise to office could bring her back into the higher social circles she had lost through the family's decline. They married for love, but both were guided by interest and expectation. Ica is a vivacious woman of the world, dissatisfied, bored, longing to return to life and society in Pest. She finds strange amusements: sometimes she embraces, sometimes she torments her master. Enoch is head over heels in love, puts up with everything, and in return happily accepts the kisses he is rewarded with.

In the early 1950s, a talented singer tries to defect to Italy with her football player lover, but is caught by an informant, so they have to pay hard for this anti-system act. Vince Nagy and Vali Szalai are a happy loving couple. Vince is a rising footballist, Vali is a singer. The socialist regime chose Vince to make an example of him: he has to leave the country immediately or broke up with Vali. They chose to leave together, but the escape fails, they get in prison.

Anna, a celebrated Transylvanian actress starring at Hungary’s National Theatre in the mid-1960s, falls in love with an Olympic champion she meets at a reception, much to the regime’s displeasure, which has other plans for the multilingual star as an official hostess for visiting dignitaries. As the secret service weaves its manipulative web across every facet of her life, Anna, fortified by her love, proves a formidable opponent to their schemes.

The film weaves together three stories from Hortobágy. It takes a sacred approach to the honesty, fallibility, stubbornness and deep emotions of the ancient people of Hortobágy. The director was inspired by Zsigmond Móricz's short story "Komor Ló" and the writer's realistic yet mystical vision to film two other stories told by the people of the Hortobágy, set in 1945 and after the communist coup.