VIDEO Orphan by Lazlo Nemes red carpet moments

1957. In Budapest, after the uprising against the Communist regime, a young Jewish boy, Andor — raised by his mother with idealised tales of his deceased father — has his world turned upside down when a brutish man appears, claiming to be his true father.

Director's statement

Orphan is the chronicle of a child’s coming to terms with his own family history and his own self, both reflective of the turmoils of the twentieth century in the heart of Europe. These stories have shaped our present and continue to haunt us, even questioning our future as a civilisation. My own family’s story served as a canvas for Orphan, spanning the ravages of the Holocaust and the tyranny of the communist regime. I wanted to create a cinematic language that would allow the viewer to revisit the traumatic experience of a child — trapped between the perception of a boy crushed by a menacing world and a family triangle he fails to understand. Ultimately, the film explores a question of inner darkness: will Andor, the young hero of Orphan, accept the stuff that he is made of?