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| Sunshine (1999)
Sunshine is
a 1999 historical film written by Israel Horovitz and István Szabó, directed
and produced by István Szabó. It follows three generations of a Jewish family
(originally called Sonnenschein, a name that literally means
"sunshine" in German, but later changed to Sors, meaning
"fate" in Hungarian) during the changes in Hungary from the beginning
of the 20th century to the period after the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. The
central male protagonist of all three generations is portrayed by Ralph
Fiennes. The film also stars the real-life mother and daughter team of Rosemary
Harris and Jennifer Ehle as well as Rachel Weisz and John Neville.
Although
fictional, the film weaves events drawn from several real sources into the
story. The Sunshine family's liquor business was based on the Zwack family's
liquor brand Unicum. One of Fiennes's three roles is based at least partly on
Hungarian Olympian Attila Petschauer, but also includes allusions to the early
life of Miksa Fenyő and other famous Hungarians of Jewish origin who suffered
from anti-Semitism and the persecution of Jews in World War II
Hungary.[citation needed] Another role in the film which is similar to that of
a historic person is the character Andor Knorr played by William Hurt which
closely resembles the latter part of the life of László Rajk.
The film was
an international co-production among companies from Germany, Austria, Hungary and
Canada. It won the Genie Award for Best Canadian Film.
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