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Mari Törőcsik, one of Hungary’s most prominent actors who won Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival and starred in two Oscar-nominated films, died on Friday in Budapest after a long illness. She was 85.

Törőcsik’s first international appearance was at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival where she starred in Palme d’Or contender Körhinta (Merry-Go-Round), from director Zoltán Fábri. In that film, she played a young farmer girl who falls in love with a peasant boy against her father’s wishes.

Francois Truffaut, who was then a journalist with the weekly Arts, said he would have given her the Best Actress Award and French poet Jean Cocteau also praised her talent. Truffaut wrote: “without the twenty-year-old artist knowing it, she was the biggest star of the festival.”

Over the past half century, she played more than 100 roles. She worked with Fábri as well as Miklós Jancsó, Márta Mészáros and Károly Makk on multiple occasions.

Mari Törőcsik, one of Hungary’s leading actors, died on Friday, at the age of 85, in Budapest after a long illness. She won best actress at the Cannes Film Festival, and appeared in two Oscar nominated films.

Törőcsik’s first international appearance was in 1956 at Cannes, where she starred in Zoltán Fábri’s Palme d’Or competitor “Körhinta” (Merry-Go-Round), playing a country girl in love with a peasant boy, battling against the opposition of her father to the relationship.

During the festival, Francois Truffaut, who was then a journalist with the weekly Arts, said he would have given her the best actress award, and Jean Cocteau also praised her performance. Truffaut wrote: “Without the 20-year-old artist knowing it, she was the biggest star of the festival.”

Since then she has played more than 100 roles. She worked with directors Fábri, Miklós Jancsó, Márta Mészáros and Károly Makk on multiple occasions.

Several...

I recently worked with one of my favorite movie poster artists, Akiko Stehrenberger, on a poster for Louis Garrel’s A Faithful Man which, with its lipstick imprints on Garrel’s face, paid accidental homage to the original poster for François Truffaut’s Stolen Kisses. It was Garrel himself who pointed this out—Akiko had never seen the Truffaut poster before and I’d forgotten it—which sent me down a rabbit hole searching for Stolen Kisses posters, of which, it turns out, there is a remarkable variety.Stolen Kisses premiered at the Avignon Film Festival on August 14, 1968 and opened in New York on March 3, 1969, almost ten years after Truffaut’s debut, The 400 Blows, had premiered at Cannes. Stolen Kisses continued the story of 400 Blows’ charming reprobate Antoine Doinel, now all grown up and working as a private detective.The original French poster, featuring an illustration of Jean-Pierre Léaud as Doinel,...

By Terence Johnson

Managing Editor

The Oscar race is never a dull one and that couldn’t be any more apparent than in the race for Best Foreign Language film. This year is certainly shaping up to be a battle of David vs. Goliath if you looked at the histories of the countries competing. In one corner, you have Italy, with a whopping 12 wins in this category, facing off with a country like Cambodia, with no Oscar nominations. But such is the beauty of the awards season and the Oscars. So before the nominations come out, here’s an Oscar primer to get you caught up on the Foreign Language films.

Belgium – 2013 Nominee: The Broken Circle Breakdown

Logline/Synopsis: Elise and Didier fall in love at first sight, in spite of their differences. He talks, she listens. He’s a romantic atheist, she’s a religious realist. When their daughter becomes seriously ill,...