Those, who keep the fire burning
Young communists. In our days, for the majority of the Hungarian society these two words practically preclude each other. But we are wrong. In 1999, the youth department of the far-left Labour Party came into being, the so-called Leftist Front, which has several hundreds young members for to-day.
In Hungary the existing regime was changed in 1989. The socialist order gave place to the democratic one, and parallel to this a process was set off, which started to compromise all the ideas and all the political and cultural players of the past regime. And what is even more, it often lent them a hateful, sometimes devilish character.
During the last 15 years, there were a lot of political mass-demonstrations in Hungary with slogans: "damned communists" on placards and in the harangues. The desire to penalise the use of the communist symbol, the red star, became the constant subject of the common talk, as there were a lot of people, for whom this symbol, as symbol of a certain kind of dictatorship, was equal to the swastika. The phrase, communist, became a hate-word in the every-day conversations.
While in the common speech, the communists as target of hatred, being mentioned together with the national socialists, are present, or in milder cases as ridiculous people at the edge of the extinction, an organisation under the name, Leftist Front exists, consisting of teenagers and young persons in their twenties. They firmly believe, that for the social problems, which evolved with the change of regime, the right solution could be a communist regime.
They believe and act, while often their friends, and what is even more, their family do not understand them. Who are they? What are their ideas, and why? What are they doing to accomplish their ideas? Who are their idols, whose teachings they follow? How they see their surroundings, and how their surroundings see them?
The aim of the film is to understand and present a social group, about which most people know almost nothing, while these young communists are looking for the answers for those problems, which are important for the majority of people. To see more then the superficial approach of the communist ideas, and to examine what this concept really mean, in its original form, without the prejudice connected to it.
The film is a follow-up type, creative documentary, consisting of situations and of interviews.
On the 2nd of November 2006 the Hungarian Labour Party holds its Congress for the renewal of its officers, and at the same time, Péter Székely, the resigning president of the Leftist Front (the youth department of the Labour Party) gives his year-evaluating address, and the election of the new members is being started.
(..."and now, comrade Péter Székely is going to speak to you"... in the background Lenin looks at us, and everything is in red colour...)
Director
- Eszter Hajdú
Cameraman
- Dániel Szandtner
Sound
- Gergely Máté Tóth
Editor
- Gergely Roszik