On Body and Soul

Synopsis

What if one day you met someone who, at night, dreams the same dream you do. Try and imagine... Would you be thrilled? Would you be scared? Would find it funny? Or rather intrusive? Or, perhaps, romantic? But what if you are not the romantic type at all? If you shudder at the thought of esoteric crap? What if you have problems dealing with your own emotions? How would you face this stranger next day after your shared, tender dreams of the night before? Would you attempt to create the same intimacy and affection you share in your dreams during the day? How is it possible that at night, several kilometers apart, while both of you sleep in lonely beds, you can become one in soul and body, but during the day, facing each other in your flesh and blood reality, you are unable to properly get through even a measly first date? And what if even the second date was a catastrophe? And the third was especially disgraceful? Would you give up? And if you gave up, could you stand it? Could you bear knowing that the person who is your soul mate at night and whose body so naturally caresses yours, remains a stranger to you during the day? Wouldn’t you just die?
A contemporary tale about the pain and beauty of our existence. Endre, the director of a modern, decent, EU-comform slaughterhouse and Maria, the new quality inspector sent by the controlling authorities can’t stand each other. One day, by pure chance, they learn that they just had the exact same dream the night before. Both of them are embarrassed by this discovery.
The following day they check: once again, they had the same dream. As they continue to compare dreams day after day, suspicious and astounded, it becomes clear that they meet each night in a common realm. This other world is peaceful and harmonious: a snowy forest, where Endre and Maria are graceful deer who gently love each other. They cannot ignore the intimacy they share so effortlessly in their dreams.
Hesitantly, they try to recreate it in their every-day, flesh and blood existence. It proves to be harder than they guessed. After struggles, failed attempts, insults and tensions, the result is humiliating disappointment. But just when they are about to give up, passion breaks down the wall raised by awkwardness, and these two people, who are so evidently not fit for love, find each other. From that day on, they step as lightly and gracefully beside each other in their waking hours as their dream-world alter-egos do among the trees of the forest.

Biography

Ildikó Enyedi has started her career as a concept and media artist. She was a member of the art group
Indigo and the Balázs Béla Studio, the only independent film studio in Eastern Europe before 1989. She
later turned to feature film directing and script writing, wrote and directed five features and several shorts.
With these works she’s won more than forty international prizes. Her film, My 20th Century, was chosen as
one of the 12 Best Hungarian Films of All Time and selected among the 10 best films of the year by The
New York Times. In addition to prizes awarded to her as a filmmaker, she has also received recognition as a
script writer (as winner of the Grand Prize of the Hartley Merrill International Screenwriting Prize for best
European Script).
She lectures at European master classes (Switzerland, Poland) and teaches at the University of Film and
Theatrical Arts in Budapest.
She worked in Berlin in the frames of the Artist in Residence program of the DAAD. She was founding
member of EUCROMA, the European Cross Media Academy. In 2011 she defended her DLA paper “Summa
cum Laude” in the field of Transmedia (CREATED WORLDS / The Relationship of Technique and Fantasy in
Moving images). Member of the European Film Academy. She was awarded the Balázs Béla and the Merited
Artist Prizes, and has received the Republic President’s Order of Merit Cross. A mother of two, she lives in
Budapest and Nordrhein Westfalen, Germany.
In 2017 her film ON BODY AND SOUL won the Golden Bear at the International Berlin Film Festival. She is
also a Member of the American Film Academy since 2017.