Our Cells

Colour, 35mm
Hungary, 2002, 91 min
Section: Documentary Films in Competition

About the film

They say that people are capable of doing anything for two reasons: in order to have or not have children. Every tenth marriage or partnership in Hungary is childless. The heroes of this film long to have a baby above all else. After long years of futile hope, they are told that the only solution is artificial insemination – a test-tube baby. Difficult times follow. Periods of hopelessness alternate with spells of euphoria; the physical and psychological pressure places their mutual love under constant examination. But they have a great goal ahead of them: a child.... Over a period of two and a half years the filmmakers followed three couples and their struggles to have a child. Louise Brown, the first test-tube baby, was born in 1978. Since that time, a million babies have been brought into the world via artificial insemination.

About the director

Tamás Almási (b. 1948, Székesfehérvár) has worked in film since 1970. He has been assistant director to István Szabó, Zoltán Fábri, Márta Mészáros and Miklós Jancsó. In 1978 he graduated in film and television direction from the Academy of Film and Theatre of Budapest, studying under Zoltán Fábri, Pál Gábor, and György Illés; today he teaches there in the documentary direction department. He started his career, however, as a feature film director, and this has had a seminal influence on his drama-centred documentaries. Since 1983 he has shot nearly 30 feature-length documentaries focusing on questions of individual human fate, and on topics of economic and social transformation (including a series of docs on the Ózd industrial agglomeration, where the gradual shutting down of huge factories has caused a deep economic and social crisis throughout the entire region).