His Master's Voice

This head-spinning, divisive sci-fi drama by Hungarian arthouse experimenter György Pálfi (Hukkle, Taxidermia) adapts, loosely, one of Polish writer Stanisław Lem’s most esteemed works, the philosophical novel His Master’s Voice (Głos Pana—“The Voice of the Lord”—in the original Polish). 

When Péter (Csaba Polgár), a Hungarian journalist, glimpses his missing-for-decades father in a documentary about a mysterious incident in Colorado that has long obsessed conspiracy theorists, he travels to America to investigate, and becomes embroiled in strange events involving secret government programs, Cold War politics, and, perhaps, extraterrestrial contact. 

The film’s dizzying array of multimedia formats and disorienting shifts in mood and tone are director Pálfi’s analogues for the complexity and range of Lem’s deeply ruminative original.

American Cinematheque Los Angeles, CA • BAMCínematek Brooklyn, NY • Denver International Film Festival Denver, CO • Maine International Film Festival Waterville, ME

György started shooting experimental Super 8 movies and began making a name for himself while still in school at Budapest’s Theater and Film Academy (1995–2002) where he studied direction. He drew international attention with his writer-director feature debut Hukkle, honored with a European Film Award for Discovery of the Year, and at more than 100 festivals in the world. His second feature, Taxidermia debuted at Cannes Un Certain Regardes and among several prizes received the Best Director Award at the 2006 Transylvania International Film Festival and Antalya IFF. After his experimental improvisation movie, I Am Not Your Friend, his fourth long feature Final Cut – Ladies and Gentlemen was the closing film of Cannes Classics in 2012. 

To date he has directed seven features, many shorts, theater plays, VR360 shorts and also commercials and music videos. In 2024, extensive retrospectives of György's work were hosted in both New York and Los Angeles.