Laiko - Gypsy in Space
- Feature
- 2018
- 95 Minutes
- Hungary
- Language: Hungarian and Russian and German
In early 1957, the Soviet Union decides to give Hungary the honor of providing the first cosmonaut to orbit in space. The most suitable candidate turns out to be Lajos Serbán, known to all as Laikó.
Director: Balázs Lengyel
Screenwriter: Balázs Lengyel, Balázs Lovas
Production Company: KMH Film
Film Critic
A joke with totalitarian

Shahin Amin
Laiko, this unruly Cold War comedy leaves political correctness in the dust. In early 1957, the Soviet Union decides to give Hungary the honor of providing the first cosmonaut to orbit in space. The most suitable candidate turns out to be Lajos Serbán, known to all as Lajkó who is obsessed with space flight since childhood. Lajkó gets his wish when his torturers, Russian agents, reveal he has high tolerance for pain. Sent to the space program, he discovers that he and his fellow astronaut trainees, including Helga, an ex-Nazi who hates gypsies, were selected because they are expendable. No test candidate has survived the ordeal so far. Lajkó plans to beat the odds with the help of his mother’s ghost up in the sky, but the Russians have other plans for the official honor of first man in space. Laiko pokes fun at Yuri Gagarin’s journey into our space.From scatological humor (a rocket-propelled outhouse blasting off with Lajkó’s unlucky mother in driver’s seat, so to speak) to jokes and black humor (bushy-eyebrowed Leonid Brezhnev on the make amid a pack of elderly generals and a hick-town commissar), this is a knee- slapper with a bitter satirical undercurrent.
Photos


Awards
2018: Trieste Science+Fiction Festival, Audience Award, Winner, Italy2018: Warsaw International Film Festival, Poland
2018: Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, Estonia
Cast and Crew
Screenwriter: Balázs Lengyel, Balázs Lovas
Producer: Ferenc Pusztai
DOP / Camera: György Réder
Editor: Wanda Kiss
Music: Ádám Balázs
Sound: Rudolf Várhegyi
Production Designer: Gábor Valcz
Cast: Tamás Keresztes, József Gyabronka, Tibor Pálffy, Zétény Varga, Athina Papadimitriu, Anna Böger
Director

Balázs Lengyel
Balázs Lengyel, director and screenwriter, born in Budapest, Hungary. He began writing short films and features like “Kojot” (2017). He joined the the writer’s room of the award winning HBO drama series “Aranyélet” (2016) as head writer before moving on to directing “Lajko – Gypsy in Space” (2018) which marks his directorial feature debut.