Private Project

Above Budapest

Two angels traded eternity for the hedonistic nights of Budapest. Thirty-five years later, they reunite to decide if the fall was worth the price. To find the answer, they must face the one memory they couldn't bury: Gabriella, the mortal woman they both loved, and the force that challenges the fragile masculinity these two former angels have just acquired.

  • Sousa Haz
    Director
  • Daniel Herner
    Producer
  • Laurent Winkler
    Key Cast
    "Theliel"
  • Erik Novak
    Key Cast
    "Uriel"
  • Eszter Lokodi
    Key Cast
    "Gabriella"
  • Project Type:
    Feature
  • Genres:
    Comedy, fantasy, drama
  • Runtime:
    1 hour 23 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    March 18, 2026
  • Country of Origin:
    Hungary
  • Country of Filming:
    Hungary
  • Language:
    English, Hungarian, Portuguese
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Film Color:
    Black & White and Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    Yes
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Sousa Haz

Márcio-André de Sousa Haz is a Spanish-Brazilian filmmaker, writer, and visual artist based in Budapest. His work is known for bridging poetic language and visual grammar, often addressing themes of memory, violence, displacement, and identity.

With an academic background in philosophy and linguistics, including a Master's degree in Poetics, his transition into cinema was marked by directing and screenwriting workshops with Roman Coppola, Asghar Farhadi, and Peter Greenaway. He further developed his training in cinematography at the Budapest Film Academy (ELTE) and in screenwriting at Sundance Collab.

He has taken part in development labs such as PÖFF | Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival and was awarded the top prize at the FEST – New Directors | New Films Festival Pitching Forum, one of Europe’s most prominent co-production events.

Cozy for Two at Kuleshov St. won the Medina Media 4K Award for Best Director (Málaga Film Festival), while The First Time I Saw Francis Taylor He Was in Slow Motion received twelve international awards.

As a writer, his poems and texts has been translated into over twenty languages. His book Apocryphal Poems of Paul Valéry was nominated for the prestigious Jabuti and Oceanos literary prizes, and his essay Poetics of Houses was awarded a grant from Brazil's National Library Foundation.

FILMOGRAPHY

Terminal / Director / 2025 / 10 min. / Short Fiction
Novela Vaga / Director / 2022 / 30 min. / Short Fiction
Fake Extreme Art / Director / 2022 / 10 min. / Experimental Short
Cosy for Two at Kuleshov St. / Director / 2018 / 20 min. / Short Fiction
Man in the Crowd / Director / 2018 / 20 min. / Short Fiction
El concepto de ironía / Director / 2017 / 20 min. / Short Fiction
Diálogos circulares: Borges, Kodama, Budapest / Director / 2017 / 10 min. / Short Documentary
The First Time I Saw Francis Taylor He Was in Slow Motion / Director / 2016 / 7 min. / Short Fiction
Artaud em Compostela / Director / 2013 / 20 min. / Short Fiction, Experimental
Replaced City / Director / 2010 / 10 min. / Experimental Short

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Director Statement

Above Budapest is a film about a city, and therefore about memory, language, and the complex ties of love. Lightly inspired by the novel Embers by Márai Sándor and Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire, the idea came from a simple question: what would happen if abstract, ethereal angels, after choosing to become human, spent their lives chasing the intensity of earthly experiences, only to discover that those moments had become ghosts themselves?

Budapest became the natural setting for this story. A city suspended between past and present, grandeur and melancholy, its cafés, streets, and ruined buildings carry the weight of a history that now survives only as the ruins of an unreachable past.

Visually, the film seeks to capture the feeling of drifting between worlds: the celestial past the characters abandoned, the raw energy of human youth, and the present decay of life’s final stages. In this way, I wanted to create a poetic, labyrinthine cinematic language about two celestial entities confronted with something they did not expect: love. Not only love for each other, but for a woman. It is Gabriella, the woman they both loved, who challenges the fragile masculinity these two former angels have just acquired.

The film itself would not exist without the collective effort of a group of friends connected to Budapest’s 8th district, a historically run-down neighborhood that is now struggling with gentrification. The place, which brings together artists, musicians, actors, expatriates, and bohemians, became the central hub and set of the project. The physical space of the bar Zsir served as the base for the team during the shooting days, and most of the film was shot in the streets around it.