A feature film by Dorka Vermes
A controversial love story between two lonely women in Orbán's Hungary.
On the brink of Hungary's most prestigious dog competition, Juli's future is bound to her mother's chihuahua breeding business. After falling for Noá, an older queer taxi driver, Juli's reality begins to unravel — pulling her away from the only life she has ever known.
An absurd melodrama about a love built on lies that nonetheless remains true — and the slow erosion of two women who refuse, for a while, to choose between freedom and family.
Places Half Empty is an absurd melodrama, a love story between two lonely women.
The story begins in Budapest with Noá, who makes a living as an illegal taxi driver. One day, outside an animal hospital, Juli gets into her taxi with three sneezing chihuahuas. This is where the two women meet, and where they fall in love.
Each of them sees in the other something they desperately need. Juli longs to escape her over-controlling family and the family's chihuahua breeding business; Noá wants to escape her own sense of rootlessness and isolation. Juli sees in Noá the possibility of freedom — Noá sees in Juli the possibility of stability.
The biggest obstacle is Juli's family, who strongly oppose her being in a lesbian relationship. To satisfy them while holding onto Noá, Juli begins to live a double life.
At first it seems like a fragile but workable solution — yet very soon it drags them both into an ever-deepening spiral of lies and increasingly extreme situations.
The weight of deception grows heavier with time, but paradoxically, in the midst of these hardships they keep discovering moments of profound, instinctive connection — as if they could find a sense of home only in each other.
What begins as a solution gradually becomes unbearable, until the growing erosion finally destroys their relationship altogether.
The two women
Daughter of the kennel.
Lives in her parents' opulent, dog-hair-covered family house in an affluent Budapest suburb. Trains the family's chihuahuas, pays for the gold cage she sleeps in. Tracksuits and a fanny pack of treats. Beneath her competence, a permanent tension — the look of someone waiting to snap. Sees in Noá the possibility of a life of her own.
The two women
Drifter of the ghetto district.
Buzzcut, tattoos, sublet in a turn-of-the-century building shedding its plaster. Drives an unlicensed cab, sells Elf-Bars from the trunk to teenagers, plays slot machines on her phone between calls. Abandoned by parents who moved to Germany without her. Constantly masking her distress. Sees in Juli the possibility of a home that stays.
How love can be equally beautiful and painful — how it is possible for it to be founded on lies and still remain true.
Dorka Vermes, Director
Their relationship hangs by a thread for the entire film, unravelling through dishonesty and unconscious games. Juli builds a fake sublet to fool her mother; Noá pretends she has not heard the lies through the kitchen wall. Between the deceptions, something true keeps surfacing: the way Noá covers Juli with a blanket, the way Juli sings to Noá in the dark when she is afraid of being alone.
A single open space, shabby yet romantic, where personality compensates for dinginess. Two rooms joined, plaster peeling, curbside finds. A neighbourhood of contradictions.
Spacious yet barren, expensive but tasteless. Greenish floor tiles, a fluffy carpet before a black leather sofa, an LED-lit liquor cabinet, certificates and photos of medal-winning chihuahuas on the walls.
Silent witnesses. Uncanny companions. The Hrabalian absurdity that loosens the severity of the drama and lets the story breathe.
This film draws deeply from my personal experiences. At first glance it may seem this love is destroyed by external pressures — by circumstances and social expectations. But gradually it becomes clear that these obstacles are already internalized, living deep inside both characters, shaping their choices and their downfall.
The film is built on the contradictions of love. Even though Juli and Noá's relationship is mostly built on lies and deception, their feelings and their connection are real. Depicting these paradoxes is the main point.
To achieve this we are further developing the script through improvisation. Dialogue and situations will be shaped around the actresses and by their performances — the only way to preserve the authenticity, honesty and originality of the story.
Although I've never explored semi-autobiographical storytelling before, I do so here because I believe this is not only a compelling love story but also a reflection on a broader societal phenomenon. Even though the film focuses on the intimate close-up of a relationship between Juli and Noá, it also lets us sense the pulse of Viktor Orbán's society in the background — the two women live under very different circumstances, but are both equally exposed and vulnerable to the system that surrounds them, because it already lives within them.
To mark the film's tone, the weight of the Eastern European legacy is contrasted with a Hrabalian absurdity, easing the monochrome gloom the political backdrop might otherwise create.
A film about faces and places — shot on film, in 4:3.
The film's primary visual reference is Ulrich Seidl — the static wide-angle frames, bodies observed with unflinching patience, mundane spaces rendered strange through extended duration. Alongside Seidl: Andrea Arnold's Fish Tank, Michael Haneke's The Piano Teacher, Sean Baker's Tangerine and Red Rocket, and early Béla Tarr — Family Nest, The Prefab People.
Close-ups are crucial as we follow Juli and Noá's relationship hanging by a thread for the entire time: Juli's ever-present tension, in which the spectator keeps waiting for her to snap, and Noá's, who constantly masks her distress. Beyond close-ups, the film explores meticulously composed one-shots — confining characters within a single frame for entire scenes as they argue or converse.
Director · Writer
Hungarian filmmaker and writer. Her debut feature Árni premiered to critical acclaim. A student of Béla Tarr's film.factory program in Sarajevo, she makes character-driven films rooted in Eastern European reality, balancing weight with Hrabalian absurdity. Places Half Empty is her second feature.
Cinematographer
London-based cinematographer. Credits include Dune: Part Two and Project Hail Mary (virtual cinematography), developed through close collaboration with Greig Fraser. His work moves between large-format studio productions and intimate, character-driven storytelling.
Producer
Tirana-based producer, founder of Art Film sh.p.k. Previous productions include The Delegation and A Peaceful Sunday. Alumnus of EAVE Producers Workshop, Rotterdam Producers Lab, and ACE Mentoring EU. Places Half Empty marks his first Central European co-production.