Hungarian Animated Film Receives Award at the Berlinale

Mirjána Balogh’s animated film “Wish You Were Ear” won the Crystal Bear Award for the best short film at the 75th Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale) on Friday evening, the National Film Institute (NFI) wrote in a press release.

The NFI-funded film, produced with the support of the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design (MOME), competed in the Generation 14+ program of one of the world’s most prestigious festivals. The 11-minute film is about the self-forming power of romantic relationships that shape us willy-nilly.

“Wish You Were Ear” is set in a world where if a couple breaks up, they have to swap a body part. Thus, not only do people literally lose a part of themselves, they also carry all their former relationships with them. The artist uses the body parts to reflect on the transformative effect of relationships, with each alien part symbolizing a new change.

In my film, I wanted to capture how we can – or cannot – accept the changes caused by past relationships after they have ended, and how these changes become part of our self-image. Some experience the transformation as a loss, others feel it has become fully part of them. I think it is a serious process of self-acceptance, and that is what the story is about,”

Mirjána Balogh, who graduated from MOME in 2024, said earlier about her film.

The film was produced by MOME with the participation of several current and former students. Its audio was created by József Iszlai, the editor was Judit Czakó, and the producer was József Fülöp.

Every year, the Berlinale receives thousands of entries from all over the world, and the festival’s Generation selection focuses on films that put young people at the center of their narrative and cinematic language. The section’s two competition programs consists of feature films, documentaries, animation films, genre films and works that expand the language of cinema on an equal footing.

The selection of Mirjána Balogh’s film is part of a long-standing success story: since 2017, MOME Animation’s graduate films have been regularly invited to the competition program of one of the world’s most prestigious festivals.

“Wish You Were Ear” joins the ranks of films such as Réka Bucsi’s “Symphony No. 42” (2012), Katalin Lovrity’s “Volcano Island” (2017), as well as Flóra Buda’s “Entropia” (2019) which won the Teddy Award for Best Short Film. The most recent Hungarian film in the Berlinale’s Generation 14+ program was Domonkos Erhardt’s “From the Corner of My Eyes” 2023, which received a certificate of distinction.

According to Zsuzsanna Vincze, Head of the MOME Film Knowledge Center, the fact that MOME Anim has become an outstanding animation studio, which is also internationally renowned, is the result of decades of persistent and consistent building. The key to its success is the search for and mentoring of talents with unique visions, the support of the diploma films, which creates professional production conditions, and the professional humility and commitment of both the teachers and the students, she stressed.