Gábor P. Koltai

After witnessing a murder, a hapless pair of misfits escape their own near death experience by posing as male strippers - only to find themselves neck deep in even bigger trouble.

A priceless archaeological find, the “Mother of Barcika”, is loaded onto a special train to tour Hungary, only for fate to derail it at the sleepy Ivaros station. There, the engine, a gendarme, the relic and its guards all end up stranded in a pigsty, igniting chaos: the relic is gambled away, the station master loses control, and the local mayor’s daughter finds unexpected love. In the ensuing mayhem, rivalries, romances and small-town intrigues all collide until order is somehow restored.

Diplomafilm is a short film that Béla Tarr made to graduate from Art School, in 1981. It is the predecessor of The Prefab People, with the same plot and the same actors, but with some changes in the plot.

"Colossal Sensation!" sees the history of Hungary in the 20th century through the eyes of twin circus clowns. For them, as for all Hungarians, it is a story of feast and famine, nostalgia and regret, suffering and triumph, although not all Hungarians had the misfortune (or was it the opportunity?) to destroy a wristwatch personally given to the Hungarian Party Leader by Stalin himself. - Roger Ebert