Two years after winning the prestigious Best Film Award in the Orizzonti slate, Gábor Reisz is back in Venice with his new feature. Celebrating its world premiere in the Spotlight section, Ground Floor is a social-critical satire about the things rotting away underneath shiny surfaces and the middle-class illusion of upward mobility. Looking forward to the grand premiere screening, the Hungarian director found some time to talk with Lidanoir about political repression under Hungary's former leaders, absurd humour as a tool of criticism, and his renewed hope in the local film industry.
Lida Bach: You were already here last year with An Explanation of Everything. How does it feel to be back?
Gábor Reisz: Being in Venice is always an honor. Making this movie was a real rush, so now should be the time to relax. But of course, it’s a festival, so it’s never relaxed for a filmmaker.
LB: It’s also never relaxed for a journalist!
GR: I’m okay, though.
LB: What inspired this story about social hierarchies and everything that hides beneath the surface, from illicit affairs and corruption to mold?
GR: My producer Julie Verkash and I wanted to make a movie that would do something with the residents’ meeting, which is a very Hungarian-specific event. Every building has a residents’ meeting twice a year. The important plot point came from wanting to say something about social apathy. We figured that the main character should be an outsider.
And of course the political situation and what life in Hungary has been like from 2024 to 2026, while we were developing the script.
LB: So the building with its residents is a microcosm of Hungarian society?
GR: Yeah, obviously. From the very beginning we didn’t think about it as a metaphorical language. If you want to make a movie about a group of people, it’s always connected to some social element. That had to be part of the movie, especially if you want to represent the social system within the house. It’s a pyramid: at the top is the building manager, on the ground floor the main character.
LB: Do you see yourself as a political filmmaker? Your last film at Venice also dealt with very topical themes.
GR: I really don’t want to be one. I agree with the idea expressed by Ken Loach, that every movie is somehow political. But honestly, my first and second feature were absolutely not political..
In Hungary, though, over the last 16 years—and for me, particularly the last eight—it has been hard not to see political connections , as everything had become so strongly influenced by politics. So I don’t consciously want to make political films, but I wouldn’t categorically say I’ll never do it, either. I just have ideas. I’m a member of the audience, too, and I try to make movies that I would want to watch and enjoy.
LB: There are all these absurdist encounters between the occupants, janitor, and the house owner. Does some of that come from your own experience? Odd neighbors, petty quarrels in an apartment complex?
GR: Yes, there are personal elements. But when you start writing, you don’t need to decide, “Okay, this is personal, and this is completely fictional.” Everything is connected to personal storytelling because you always write about yourself and the people around you. My co-writer Eva Schulze and I also drew a lot of inspiration from politicians and people around us.
LB: You mix different genres. How did you juggle the stylistic different elements from different genres, from comedy over romantic drama to surrealism?
GR: Writing can be really boring sometimes, and you want to entertain yourself during the process. That’s one reason I like using humor. When I started writing this movie, I was in fact in a depression, as I felt the political situation was really dark. Nevertheless, I didn’t want to make a totally pessimistic, dark movie. The only way to avoid that was humor.
LB: Is there one genre you particularly enjoy?
GR: Honestly, no.
LB: Films like The Tenant and High-Rise come to mind, paranoia films set inside apartment blocks. Were any of these an inspiration?
GR: I never thought about specific films during the writing process. Of course, I’ve seen these movies. I was a cinephile before I started making films, and still try to watch a lot of movies. I really love film history. But I’m no Tarantino who takes specific movies or directors to reference or rebuild their scenarios. Sometimes I realize similarities to other films, but there’s never anything specific.
I’m a huge lover of Italian cinema, especially the satirical films of the 1970s by Monicelli and Dino Risi. I also love the Czech New Wave and several Hungarian films. But during the development process and the shooting, we never talked about those.
LB: The story is specifically concerning a middle-class milieu and plays with middle-class ambition and its illusions of upward social mobility. How do you feel about this element of class ambition?
GR: What I’ve seen and felt over the last ten years is that our political system has essentially told people that they can’t do anything: If you have a problem, you have to shut up or go away. Being critical is not an option. That was the situation in Hungary. It generates a lot of frustration. For a filmmaker, it’s impossible to remain completely passive. Art has to be free and artistic expression has to be free.
On the other hand, in such a suffocating situation you become you also feel more energized to do something. Before 2020, I was in a kind of apathy and never wanted to make political movies, because I thought that was really dirty. I think that was partly the result of unconscious communication by the government… The message was that you don’t need to care because they are in control, and you never criticize it.
LB: Would you say that your films are a way of having a voice in a society where people’s political voice has been repressed?
GR: Yeah. Of course , things have changed a lot. But in 2024, I found the situation exactly like this: there was no opportunity to say anything critical about anything. Now, after the regime change on April 12, 2026, I do hope it will be different.
LB: How difficult is it to make a film like Ground Floor now, compared to before the election? Would it have been possible to make this film before, or had you already started shooting?
GR: We had already started. We began in the middle of March, and the election took place right in the middle of the shoot which was just 20 days. For a low-budget, independent Hungarian film without any national funding, it’s always hard. But when you are determined to achieve something then it’s also very gratifying to succeed with a tiny group of people.
I can’t say what life will be like now, after the election, since the new government has only been in power since April. I think the film industry will change a lot. They’re still working on how to reform everything connected to the industry.
LB: Now that you can look at Hungary’s future a little more optimistically, where will you get your inspiration from if there isn’t as much political repression anymore?
GR: I’m not sure this government’s system can change just because of an election. It lasted for 16 years, and I don’t think the system could change overnight. So I think it’s still largely the same. But of course, I have hope.
LB: Also, there’s no shortage of political repression in the world. Will you turn to other systems?
GR: I don’t know. Maybe in Hungary the new people in power are different, and maybe many people genuinely wanted change.
LB: Do you currently have a new project you’re working on?
GR: Not yet. The idea for this movie came around the end of 2024. We shot it in March 2026, and it was a totally crazy rush to make the film. When we finished shooting, I would usually go home at the end of the day and start editing. It was extremely exhausting.
Now I need to wait and see what the new Hungarian film-financing system will look like. I’m curious about the new generation of filmmakers and hope they will have the opportunity to make movies. The most important thing is to give young people the chance to tell the stories they need to tell. I’d love to start writing, but I don’t have any plans yet.
LB: Thank you for the interview!