A feature film by Dorka Vermes
A controversial love story between two lonely women in Orbán's Hungary.
01
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.
02
Places Half Empty is an absurd melodrama, a love story between two lonely young 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 to their relationship is Juli's family, who strongly oppose her being in a lesbian relationship. To satisfy her family's expectations while still holding onto her relationship with 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 also keep discovering moments of profound, instinctive connection — as if they could find a sense of home only in each other. This tension between the strain of their false life and the undeniable intimacy that binds them is what drives the relationship forward for so long. What begins as a solution gradually becomes unbearable, until the growing erosion finally destroys their relationship altogether.
03
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. Wears 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.
Wants: freedom, a place of her own, to be loved without permission.
Fears: being cut off from her family forever.
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 in 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.
Wants: stability, a place that's hers, someone who will not leave.
Fears: bouncing forever, falling asleep alone in the dark.
04
"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. They take the dogs to a breed survey, throw birthday parties on a rooftop with a portable grill, dance to bad pop in the dark.
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. The film holds these two truths — the lie and the love — in the same frame, for as long as it can.
05
The film treats every location as a living entity, each with a distinct atmosphere.
Magdolna negyed — the ghetto district
A single open space, shabby yet romantic, where personality compensates for dinginess. Two rooms joined, plaster peeling, curbside finds and old furniture from scrap yards. Holocaust memorials and Romani families outside the window, hipster artists and expats on the corner. A neighborhood of contradictions, full of life. Here the camera closes in — only what is meaningful stays in frame.
Affluent suburb, Budapest
A quiet, leafy retreat with detached comfort. Divided living spaces mirror her fragmented family dynamic; the serene neighborhood heightens her sense of isolation. 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. A still, distant camera holds the space like a Jenga tower on the verge of collapse.
06
Silent witnesses. Uncanny companions. The Hrabalian absurdity that loosens the severity of the drama and lets the story breathe.
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07
Dorka Vermes
This film draws deeply from my personal experiences. For me, what makes this story truly meaningful is that, 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. In the end, the real obstacles are not external but internal ones.
The film is built on portraying 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 — how love can be equally beautiful and painful, and how it is possible for it to be founded on lies and still remain true. Our concept lies in sustaining these fragile contradictions for as long as possible, showing both their power and their fragility.
To achieve this we are further developing the script through improvisation. Dialogue and situations will be shaped around the actresses and by their performances. I believe this is the only way to preserve the authenticity, honesty and originality of the story — with all its contradictions — and to create a complex portrait of love.
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 main characters live under very different circumstances, but they are both equally exposed and vulnerable to the system that surrounds them — because it already lives within them, and in the end, this is what defines them both.
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. These absurd elements take shape in the ever-present chihuahuas — silent witnesses, always there as uncanny companions — and in the props and rituals of the double life the characters are forced to maintain. Together they loosen the severity of the drama and let the story breathe, balancing heaviness with irony.
08
A film about faces and places — shot on film, in 4:3.
Looking at Dorka's previous work, it's clear she has always loved character-driven stories. Even though Places Half Empty is more dialogue-heavy than her first feature Árni, the film aims to use strong visual language and atmosphere. Inspired by early Béla Tarr — Family Nest, The Prefab People, The Outsider — and the work of John Cassavetes, Places Half Empty focuses on a relationship unfolding primarily within a flat.
Since it is a film about faces and places, shooting on film, in 4:3 aspect ratio, feels essential — ideal for capturing close-ups and emotions, and for framing spaces meaningfully. 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. Locations and their specific attributes are treated as living entities, each with a distinct atmosphere.
Visual references
09
Director · Writer
Hungarian filmmaker. Her debut feature Árni premiered to critical acclaim. A protégée of Béla Tarr, who has mentored her through her early work, Dorka makes character-driven films rooted in Eastern European reality, balancing weight with absurdity. Places Half Empty is her second feature.
Cinematographer
London-based cinematographer. Credits include Dune: Part Two and Project Hail Mary (virtual cinematography). His work moves between large-format studio cinematography and intimate, character-driven storytelling, with a particular interest in the meeting of light, architecture, and faces.
