Film Fest Documentary Preview: ‘Budapest Diaries’

This is a preview of a film featured in the 2025 Newburyport Documentary Film Festival.

Heavy subject matter is heavy no matter how you slice it, but I believe it is the duty and even obligation of every privileged human to expose themselves to the terrible effects of war, and pervasive evils, since by doing so we might position ourselves to intercede when we become aware of evils within our power to influence.  

Budapest Diaries provides a portal to an event most of us would rather not travel too, especially having a broad understanding of the horrors of it. It provides this portal through the diaries of Hungarian Jews who survived, some who did not, and one young teacher who decided she would rather risk death than stand by and let innocent people die. The diaries are explored with the children of these survivors, or in the case of the young teacher, the survivor who was a child when she sheltered him and his mother.

I said that most of us would prefer not to immerse ourselves in a tragedy we probably consider ourselves familiar with, maybe overly familiar. Though there has been a remarkable supply of nazi and holocaust subject matter in the last 10 years or so, this film provides a unique study by focusing not on the horrors of what happened to the individuals, but on their telling of the story through their own often beautiful words, as they processed what was happening and documented their feelings, hopes, and fears.

The film is ultimately a human story, and displays the courageous beauty of the human spirit, supported by remarkably well-sourced and selected film photos and footage cleverly curated, edited, and interwoven. I’ll conclude by again stating that I believe it’s our duty to never bury our heads in the sand, and regardless my own bias, this is a very beautiful and tenably short documentary that would be worth your time to watch. 

Peter Neverette

The 21st-annual Newburyport Documentary Film Festival runs from September 26-28, 2025.