Halfway Home (Hungary, 2023) – National Premiere

Krisztián is a twenty-something with no direction to his life. He starts his new job at the morgue - it seems easy: he is the nightwatchman. The only thing he is supposed to do is sit through his shift. But on the first night he finds that the dead don't rest in peace; they are waking up to walk the corridors and ask for his help. Soon Krisztián finds that his job description runs longer than he thought. The souls trapped at the morgue have just recently died; and they all have some unresolved matter from their living days - they can't pass this stage with the excess baggage on their soul. The dead have 29 days to resolve their problems - and their agent in life is the Nightwatchman; Krisztián. He has to grow to match this new responsibility; because if he doesn't the souls are destroyed by his polar opposite - the Mortician; a faceless, inhuman power that consumes the dead. Krisztián has to learn new tricks and skills in order to save as many of the souls as he could; he is even getting good at it - but the unexpected happens; he falls in love with Ági, the girl of his dreams. Too bad she is already dead; spending his final 29 days at the morgue. Krisztián has got no other choice; together with his witch aunt he devices a plan - a plan on how to escape from the nighttime morgue, through the underworld into life. But the Mortician won't let them go easily.

2023 Silver Mélies award winner at Brussels IFFF, 2023

Q&A with director Isti Madarász

Director: Isti Madarász

Cast: Péter Bárnai, Vivien Rujder, Erzsébet Kútvölgyi, János Kulka, Miklós Galla

Genre: Fantasy, romantic

Running Time: 1h 43 min.

Language: Hungarian

Subtitles: Romanian

N-15 | Not recommended for under 15s