# The Witness (1969 film)
**The Witness** (*A tanú*) is a 1969 Hungarian color feature film, a political satire directed and written by Péter Bacsó that mocks the show trials and cult of personality of the [Rákosi era](https://www.edgepedia.org/rakosi-era) in early 1950s Hungary. Produced by MAFILM 1. Játékfilmstúdió, it was banned for roughly ten years after completion, became a cult film while under the ban, and reached an international audience after its screening at the Cannes Film Festival in 1981.[1](https://nfi.hu/en/core-films-1/films-3/feature-films-1/the-witness-a-tanu.html) • [2](https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/2019/a-tanu-the-witness-a-satire-on-hungary-s-dictatorship/)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Original title | *A tanú* ("The Witness"), color Hungarian feature film, 1969[1](https://nfi.hu/en/core-films-1/films-3/feature-films-1/the-witness-a-tanu.html) |
| Director and writer | Péter Bacsó (born 1928, Košice; died 2009, Budapest)[3](https://www.filmfestivalcottbus.de/en/program-en/film-archive/movie/1759.html) |
| Production | MAFILM 1. Játékfilmstúdió; cinematographer János Zsombolyai; music György Vukán; editor Sándor Boronkay[1](https://nfi.hu/en/core-films-1/films-3/feature-films-1/the-witness-a-tanu.html) • [4](https://mandadb.hu/tetel/8377/A_tanu) |
| Runtime | 103 minutes per the National Film Institute; the Cottbus festival catalog lists 111 minutes[1](https://nfi.hu/en/core-films-1/films-3/feature-films-1/the-witness-a-tanu.html) • [3](https://www.filmfestivalcottbus.de/en/program-en/film-archive/movie/1759.html) |
| Lead cast | Ferenc Kállai (József Pelikán), Lajos Őze (comrade Virág), Zoltán Fábri (Zoltán Dániel), Béla Both (comrade Bástya), Lili Monori[1](https://nfi.hu/en/core-films-1/films-3/feature-films-1/the-witness-a-tanu.html) • [4](https://mandadb.hu/tetel/8377/A_tanu) |
| Censorship | Banned for about ten years; limited screening from 1979; international premiere at Cannes in 1981[2](https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/2019/a-tanu-the-witness-a-satire-on-hungary-s-dictatorship/) • [3](https://www.filmfestivalcottbus.de/en/program-en/film-archive/movie/1759.html) |
| Restoration | 4K restoration of the original uncensored version shown at Cannes Classics in 2019[5](https://nfi.hu/en/national-film-institute/news/the-original-uncensored-version-of-the-witness-at-cannes-classics.html) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
The story is set in 1950, during the early communist dictatorship under [Mátyás Rákosi](https://www.edgepedia.org/matyas-rakosi). The hero, József Pelikán (Ferenc Kállai), is a Danube dyke-reeve and single parent. With nothing to eat, his family secretly slaughters the household pig, Dezső, an act classified as illegal black-market slaughter. Pelikán is found out and imprisoned, then brought before comrade Virág (Lajos Őze), who tells him that old, trusted communists like him are needed and appoints him to a series of positions of trust.[1](https://nfi.hu/en/core-films-1/films-3/feature-films-1/the-witness-a-tanu.html)
Pelikán becomes, in quick succession, director of a swimming pool, manager of the Amusement Park, and head of the Institute of Orange Research, but each posting ends with a misdemeanor and another prison term. Virág's final request is that Pelikán serve as star witness in a show trial against his old friend Zoltán Dániel (Zoltán Fábri), a former resistance fighter turned minister who stands accused of spying and treason. Pelikán, a simple man, is ideologically insufficiently "developed" for lying; the charge is so absurd that he cannot keep to the rehearsed text and ends up in prison himself, for the fourth time.[1](https://nfi.hu/en/core-films-1/films-3/feature-films-1/the-witness-a-tanu.html) • [5](https://nfi.hu/en/national-film-institute/news/the-original-uncensored-version-of-the-witness-at-cannes-classics.html)
The friendship has a wartime root: in 1944 Pelikán had hidden Dániel, then a fighter against the fascist Arrow Cross party, in his cellar, the same cellar where he later conceals the pork from the illegally slaughtered pig. When the State Security Force (ÁVO) arrives after an anonymous tip, it is Dániel himself who reveals the hiding place to the police.[5](https://nfi.hu/en/national-film-institute/news/the-original-uncensored-version-of-the-witness-at-cannes-classics.html)
## Historical references
Nearly every major character is identifiable as a caricature of a real figure. Comrade Virág was inspired by Gábor Péter, head of the State Protection Authority (ÁVH). Comrade Bástya resembles both Mátyás Rákosi and the defense minister Mihály Farkas. Zoltán Dániel, against whom Pelikán must testify, is an unambiguous reference to [László Rajk](https://www.edgepedia.org/laszlo-rajk), who was sentenced to death in a show trial.[1](https://nfi.hu/en/core-films-1/films-3/feature-films-1/the-witness-a-tanu.html)
The film's most absurd scenes have real bases. During the Rákosi era the amusement park really was plastered with pictures of Engels; a socialist orange orchard cooperative really existed, and its chief was decorated with the [Kossuth Prize](https://www.edgepedia.org/kossuth-prize); and Mihály Farkas really did empty a grammar school swimming pool for his own use. The "Hungarian orange" joke, in which Pelikán passes off a lemon as a sourer, yellower, but home-grown orange, draws on a real event: at a film premiere in the early 1950s, Rákosi offered the young Bacsó an orange, a rarity at the time, and Bacsó kept the fruit until it rotted rather than eat it.[5](https://nfi.hu/en/national-film-institute/news/the-original-uncensored-version-of-the-witness-at-cannes-classics.html) • [3](https://www.filmfestivalcottbus.de/en/program-en/film-archive/movie/1759.html)
## Production and censorship
Despite its daring subject, the screenplay was approved relatively easily, personally nodded through by György Aczél, the official who controlled Hungarian cultural policy. Shooting was later halted, however, and resumption was tied to a condition: a political commissar, Péter Rényi, chairman of the Film Arts Council and deputy editor of *Népszabadság*, had to join the production. The screenplay was rewritten, scenes were cut and reshot, and changes were still "requested" after test screenings.[1](https://nfi.hu/en/core-films-1/films-3/feature-films-1/the-witness-a-tanu.html)
Anticipating trouble, Bacsó cut some scenes himself before the planned 1969 release, but the film was nevertheless censored by the Hungarian government and shelved. One visible trace of this intervention remains in the film itself: the tram scene that closes the distributed version, set years after the main story, was inserted at the censor's instruction in 1969 and does not appear in the uncensored version.[2](https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/2019/a-tanu-the-witness-a-satire-on-hungary-s-dictatorship/) • [6](https://port.hu/adatlap/film/tv/a-tanu-1969---eredeti-cenzurazatlan-valtozat--a-tanu-1969---eredeti-cenzurazatlan-valtozat/movie-210696?token=f4534efe3f176799b031c771bcee1a71)
During the ban the film circulated unofficially. Copies were passed from hand to hand, first among party functionaries, then county party workers, Young Communist KISZ clubs, and finally university film clubs, so the film was already established in public consciousness before its first official screening.[1](https://nfi.hu/en/core-films-1/films-3/feature-films-1/the-witness-a-tanu.html) It was shown to a limited extent from 1979 on; the Cottbus festival catalog records that it reached cinemas only ten years after filming, at two Budapest cinemas, with critics initially banned from reviewing it.[2](https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/2019/a-tanu-the-witness-a-satire-on-hungary-s-dictatorship/) • [3](https://www.filmfestivalcottbus.de/en/program-en/film-archive/movie/1759.html)
## Cannes and international release
The film was selected for Un Certain Regard at the 1981 Cannes Film Festival. Following that screening it was distributed in 32 countries.[2](https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/2019/a-tanu-the-witness-a-satire-on-hungary-s-dictatorship/) In 2019, on the thirtieth anniversary of Hungary's change of regime, a 4K restoration was shown in the Cannes Classics section, presenting the original uncensored version for the first time on the Riviera where the film had premiered internationally.[5](https://nfi.hu/en/national-film-institute/news/the-original-uncensored-version-of-the-witness-at-cannes-classics.html) • [7](https://filmtett.ro/cikk/kicsit-sarga-kicsit-savanyu-magyar-120-ak-a-tanu)
## Place in Hungarian culture
The National Film Institute describes *The Witness* as the number one Hungarian cult film, in which nearly every other line has become a saying. Its cult status is attributed both to the courage of its subject and to its episodic structure of anecdote-based scenes and quotable gags, carried by a cast that included the film director Zoltán Fábri and the theater director Béla Both in acting roles.[1](https://nfi.hu/en/core-films-1/films-3/feature-films-1/the-witness-a-tanu.html) Many passages entered the Hungarian vocabulary; Virág's line that "the situation is intensifying" ("a helyzet fokozódik") remains a commonly quoted phrase.[3](https://www.filmfestivalcottbus.de/en/program-en/film-archive/movie/1759.html) • [8](https://magyar.film.hu/filmhu/magazin/megint-tanu-szakma-tanulmany.html)
The satire also works apart from its specific setting: the National Film Institute notes that, divorced from the historical context, it still speaks to the conflict between the naive, well-meaning little person and power that pushes him around at will. Bacsó himself identified with his hero, saying "József Pelikán, that's me," and describing how he too began in 1945 as an absolute loyalist believing in the socialist utopia.[1](https://nfi.hu/en/core-films-1/films-3/feature-films-1/the-witness-a-tanu.html) • [5](https://nfi.hu/en/national-film-institute/news/the-original-uncensored-version-of-the-witness-at-cannes-classics.html) Bacsó later returned to the character in *Megint tanú* ("Witness Again", 1994).[9](https://old.nfi.hu/hu/alkoto/bacso-peter)
## References
1. [The Witness – A tanú, National Film Institute Hungary](https://nfi.hu/en/core-films-1/films-3/feature-films-1/the-witness-a-tanu.html)
2. [A Tanú (The Witness), a satire on Hungary's dictatorship, Festival de Cannes](https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/2019/a-tanu-the-witness-a-satire-on-hungary-s-dictatorship/)
3. [A TANÚ / The Witness, FilmFestival Cottbus film archive](https://www.filmfestivalcottbus.de/en/program-en/film-archive/movie/1759.html)
4. [A tanu, Magyar Nemzeti Digitális Archívum](https://mandadb.hu/tetel/8377/A_tanu)
5. ["On the Socialist Ghost Train" – The original, uncensored version of The Witness at Cannes Classics, National Film Institute Hungary](https://nfi.hu/en/national-film-institute/news/the-original-uncensored-version-of-the-witness-at-cannes-classics.html)
6. [A tanú (1969) – Eredeti, cenzúrázatlan változat, Port.hu](https://port.hu/adatlap/film/tv/a-tanu-1969---eredeti-cenzurazatlan-valtozat--a-tanu-1969---eredeti-cenzurazatlan-valtozat/movie-210696?token=f4534efe3f176799b031c771bcee1a71)
7. [Kritika: Bacsó Péter: A tanú (1969), Filmtett](https://filmtett.ro/cikk/kicsit-sarga-kicsit-savanyu-magyar-120-ak-a-tanu)
8. [Megint Tanú?, filmhu](https://magyar.film.hu/filmhu/magazin/megint-tanu-szakma-tanulmany.html)
9. [Bacsó Péter, Nemzeti Filmintézet](https://old.nfi.hu/hu/alkoto/bacso-peter)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Black comedy and satire films › Released 1939 to 1997*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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